Charleston County Public Library

My absolute darling, a novel, Gabriel Tallent

eng

no index present

fiction

My absolute darling

large print

967500624

Gabriel Tallent

a novel

"Turtle Alveston is tough. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the Northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her father, a renegade survivalist whose towering eloquence can lapse unpredictably into violence. Turtle's social existence is confined to lonely days at the middle school, fending off the interest of anyone who might get close; to cribbage games with her declining grandfather; and to nights spent with her tortured father, practicing for the end of the world. Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high school boy who whiles away his days making jokes and dreaming up elaborate plans to save the world, who is surrounded by close friends and a loving family. He isn't like anything she's seen before, and he represents the society her father has always scorned. Slowly, the larger world comes into focus: her life at home is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and the sweet, innocent lightness of a teenage crush, Turtle can imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her."--Page [4] of cover