![]() ![]() While this freedom is new and thrilling to Cat, it’s more of the same, and then dangerously worse, for Marlena. Without adult supervision, the girls’ friendship flourishes over the course of a rowdy year as they begin to skip school and get into'¦ pretty much exactly what you’d imagine they’d get into'“sex, drugs, booze, mischief, etc. ![]() Yet Cat’s aloof mother is too self-involved to notice or care. Marlena is that kid you don't want your own kid playing with. Just two years older, but motherless and saddled with a meth-making father, Marlena has been exposed to much more of the darker sides of life. Her innocence, or maybe just naivety, are the yin to her new neighbor Marlena’s wild and worldly yang. In this friendship, Cat, age 15, is recently plucked from her home and moved to a trailer park in northern Michigan as a result of her parents’ messy divorce. Like any good novel, the stakes seem higher in Marlena. And Julie Buntin, in her raw debut novel, nails it. ![]() But I've had relationships like this, and so have most women I know. Perhaps because, beyond 'œboyfriend' or 'œgirlfriend,' the nebulous shape of a best friendship requires more guarding and defending and is therefore more sacred. The desperate loyalty, the inexplicable need to pour your every secret into your friend vessel. The intensity that can rival a great romance. There is something compelling about certain teenage female friendships. ![]()
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