The Burning Girl
A Novel
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3.6 • 75 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
"[A] masterwork of psychological fiction.… Messud teases readers with a psychological mystery, withholding information and then cannily parceling it out." —Chicago Tribune
Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship. The Burning Girl is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles, expertly, childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality—crafting a true, immediate portrait of female adolescence.
Claire Messud, one of our finest novelists, is as accomplished at weaving a compelling fictional world as she is at asking the big questions: To what extent can we know ourselves and others? What are the stories we create to comprehend our lives and relationships? Brilliantly mixing fable and coming-of-age tale, The Burning Girl gets to the heart of these matters in an absolutely irresistible way.
The Burning Girl was named one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, NPR, Financial Times, Town & Country, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Refinery29, and Literary Hub.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Trying to console her heartbroken daughter, Julia Robinson's mother muses, "Everyone loses a best friend at some point." Julia is the narrator of Messud's beautiful novel about two young girls, inseparable since nursery school in a small Massachusetts town, who feel they're "joined by an invisible thread," but who drift apart as they come of age. For years, Julia and Cassie Burnes have shared adventures and dreams, but as they cross the pivotal threshold into seventh grade, Julia feels betrayed when Cassie is drawn to boys, alcohol, and drugs. To the reader, the split seems inevitable. Julia is the product of a stable household, but Cassie's blowsy, unreliable mother transfers her affection to a brutally controlling lover who destroys Cassie's sense of security. Desperately unhappy, Cassie sets out to find the father she has never known and begins a spiral of self-destruction that Julia, now no longer Cassie's intimate friend, must hear about from the boy they both love. Messud shines a tender gaze on her protagonists and sustains an elegiac tone as she conveys the volatile emotions of adolescent behavior and the dawning of female vulnerability ("being a girl is about learning to be afraid"). Julia voices the novel's leitmotif: that everyone's life is essentially a mysterious story, distorted by myths. Although it reverberates with astute insights, in some ways this simple tale is less ambitious but more heartfelt than Messud's previous work. The Emperor's Children was a many-charactered, satiric study of Ivy League educated, entitled young people making it in New York. The Woman Upstairs was a clever, audacious portrayal of an untrustworthy protagonist. Informed by the same sophisticated intelligence and elegant prose, but gaining new poignant depths, this novel is haunting and emotionally gripping.
Customer Reviews
Provocative story of truth
This was an enticing tale of our female search for identity…a young identity. A prayer that our friendship with another young woman will help us define ourselves and the value of sisterhood. It is also a sad story sensitivity told by Jodi (if I may). I loved it. Thanks from your Vermont sister.
The Burning Girl
This is a beautifully written book. Such wonderful words used to describe places,people and thoughts!