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A review by perry417
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
4.0
I have really fallen out of the reading habit. Too many things going on with my family, too many things going on with the world. I tend to veg out in front of a silly iphone app rather than read. I'm NINE books behind my 2018 goal! So this book took me a long time to get through, but not because it wasn't excellent.
It's a beautiful, melancholy story about two girls and their divergent paths. They are inseparable as children, as close as sisters, and there's a very detailed description of one perfect summer day when they are on the cusp of middle school -- still young enough to be imaginative and adventurous, but with more serious issues on the horizon. The book then beautifully describes their friendship for the next several years -- with boys and grades and parties and experimentation and expectations and parents. I was reminded of my own mixed up friendships in high school, and the paths that the friendships between my teenage daughter and her friends have taken.
There were some truly beautiful phrases in this book, which added to the aching if that makes sense. I don't mean to say that the book was depressing, but it was beautifully written and captured the time period so well.
It's a beautiful, melancholy story about two girls and their divergent paths. They are inseparable as children, as close as sisters, and there's a very detailed description of one perfect summer day when they are on the cusp of middle school -- still young enough to be imaginative and adventurous, but with more serious issues on the horizon. The book then beautifully describes their friendship for the next several years -- with boys and grades and parties and experimentation and expectations and parents. I was reminded of my own mixed up friendships in high school, and the paths that the friendships between my teenage daughter and her friends have taken.
There were some truly beautiful phrases in this book, which added to the aching if that makes sense. I don't mean to say that the book was depressing, but it was beautifully written and captured the time period so well.