A review by pchb
Marlena by Julie Buntin

5.0

This will be one of those books I read over and over. I know it will occupy real estate in my brain. The blurb is technically true but incredibly misleading. I love reading about teenhood so I read a lot of YA but I would prefer to be reading this: a book about being a teen, reflecting on it, but definitely not YA. That keeps all the nastiness and griminess of it and celebrates how good it feels even when you know it's bad. How it affects you for the rest of your life. How we put so much weight on our adolescence. How we should be glorifying the mundanity of adulthood too. The sacrifices you make to get that mundanity. How you can be so close with someone and so many parts of them remain unknowable. How intoxicating friendship can be. The take on alcoholism in this book is nuanced in a way I haven't seen elsewhere in fiction. I think you would really like this book if you were once a girl, if you've ever felt yourself falling down a hole, if you've ever experienced someone spiraling and had no idea how to stop it or if you even should. If you were ever a teen and if you ever catch yourself still thinking about it.