MARLENA named a best book of The year by NPR, Publishers Weekly, huffington post, BUZzfeed, Vogue, NYLON, iBooks, Kirkus Reviews, Esquire, The Washington Post & More
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Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize / Michigan Notable Book / Longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize / Nevada Reads / Belletrist Book Club / Barnes & Noble Discover Pick / Indie Next Pick / Book of the Month Club / The Rumpus Book Club / NYLON Book Club
An electric debut novel about love, addiction, and loss; the story of two girls and the feral year that will cost one her life, and define the other’s for decades
Everything about fifteen-year-old Cat’s new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena’s orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts—first drink, first cigarette, first kiss—while Marlena’s habits harden and calcify. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Now, decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself and move on, even as the memory of Marlena keeps her tangled in the past.
Alive with an urgent, unshakable tenderness, Julie Buntin’s Marlena is an unforgettable look at the people who shape us beyond reason and the ways it might be possible to pull oneself back from the brink.
PRAISE FOR MARLENA
“The gifted young writer Julie Buntin has written a novel of deep and exquisite intelligence, humor, and riveting sensitivity. A terrific debut.”–Lorrie Moore
“Julie Buntin captures that unique moment at the precipice of adulthood with emotional honesty and insight. She writes the kind of piercing, revelatory sentences you have to read to whomever is near, sentences you find yourself remembering years later.”–Jonathan Safran Foer
"Marlena is absolutely lacerating. The most accurate portrait I’ve read about angst, lust, boredom, and the blindness of youth. It isn’t merely a friendship chronicle, nor is it a profile of a doomed, beautiful girl. It’s the story of a haunting, about the ghosts that never release us and continue to define us. Julie Buntin’s command of her craft is so flawless you forget that it’s fiction. I binge-read Marlena - sick to my stomach, with equal parts fear and nostalgia- stunned that any of us made it out of our adolescence alive." –Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter
"The true magic of Julie Buntin is she writes stories that feel like your own. This gorgeous, assured debut captures the romance of young friendship, cutting deep with the finest touch."–Julia Pierpont, author of Among the Ten Thousand Things
"Marlena slayed me. Gorgeously written, with a sense of place so perfect I didn't even have to close my eyes to pretend I was there, this novel is rich and sensuous and beautifully conceived. Buntin writes about the all-consuming bond between teenage girls with urgency and suspense and despair. I loved every word."–Anton DiSclafani, bestselling author of The After Party and The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls
"In Marlena, Julie Buntin revitalizes a classic story making it all her own with sensuous, vibrant prose and a narrator who feels deeply even as she feints certain painful truths about herself. In these pages I not only saw my own story, I came to understand it better. Many readers will too. This is a fierce and gorgeous debut."–Edan Lepucki, bestselling author of California
MARLENA named a Michigan Notable Book
MARLENA is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize
MARLENA named a best book of the year by NPR, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Vogue, NYLON, iBooks, Brooklyn Public Library, Esquire, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, & more.
MARLENA selected for Nevada Reads
"A thrilling and important examination of female adolescent friendship... “Marlena’’ feels timeless, its vivid characters suspended in the difficult moment of awakening just before adulthood. It is a gem of a book, brief and urgent, nearly perfect in its execution... Buntin’s prose is elaborately descriptive, sometimes invoking physical sensations in the reader." –Boston Globe
"At the center of Julie Buntin’s debut novel is the kind of coming-of-age friendship that goes beyond camaraderie, into a deeper bond that forges identity; it’s friendship as a creative act, a collaborative work of imagination. . .This generous, sensitive novel of true feeling. . . sweeps you up without too much explication, becoming both a painful exorcism and a devoted memorial to friends and selves who are gone." –New York Times Book Review
"Excellent....a wild, gorgeous evocation of the wildness and gorgeousness of youth... This longing makes itself felt in the novel’s many lyrical passages, an intense shimmering that recalls Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Virgin Suicides” (also set in Michigan) and Marilynne Robinson’s “Housekeeping” (alluded to by Cat). If Marlena has one foot in the world of Midwestern realism, then it has another in the world of visionary fiction... [Buntin’s] lyricism is precise and revelatory, capable of great beauty and, when called for, great ugliness. Marlena is a novel about youth—a time of splendor and squalor. Buntin make us see, hear and feel both." –San Francisco Chronicle
"It's still so early in 2017 that calling something a best debut novel of the year is a dicey thing to try and do. But if the Lorrie Moore blurb on the front cover doesn't tip you off that Julie Buntin's Marlena is a book you should be paying attention to, the fact that the author created something that could easily be called the millennial Midwestern version of the celebrated Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Novels crossed with Robin Wasserman's great Girls on Fire, should do the trick." –Rolling Stone
“A keenly observed study of teenage character. . .poignant and unforgettable”
–Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Standout debut novel... Like Ferrante and Smith, Buntin is attuned to the way in which adolescent friends embolden and betray."–Vogue, "Girls on the Verge"
"Sensitive and smart and arrestingly beautiful, debut novelist Buntin's tale of the friendship between two girls in the woods of Northern Michigan makes coming-of-age stories feel both urgent and new... Jumping between their teenage friendship in Michigan and Cat’s adult life in New York City, Buntin creates a world so subtle and nuanced and alive that it imprints like a memory. Devastating; as unforgettable as it is gorgeous." –Kirkus, starred review
"In this deeply affecting and keenly astute debut novel, Buntin exposes the defining moments of adolescence, with its complicated entanglements, and how they haunt even the survivors." –The Los Angeles Times
"Buntin's prose is emotional and immediate, and the interior lives she draws of young women and obsessive best friends are Ferrante-esque."–Booklist, starred review
"Stunning first novel... Buntin perfectly captures a burning and essential friendship with lasting consequences and that terrible moment when we make a wrong turn and can’t go back. An exceptional portrait, disturbing and precisely observed; highly recommended."–Library Journal, starred review
"As the friendship between stable Cat and rebellious Marlena unfolds, it'll shock you...and remind you of that bestie your parents always side-eyed."–Cosmopolitan
"Gorgeous, knowing debut."–Marie Claire
"From its brilliant opening sentence, “Tell me what you can’t forget, and I’ll tell you who you are,” Julie Buntin’s debut novel creates a hauntingly original atmosphere for a familiar story...An unforgettable portrait of teenage confusion and experimentation."–Bookpage
"Stunning debut... stellar first novel... Buntin captures the agony, ecstasy, and lasting impact of adolescent friendship." –Real Simple
"Mesmerizing debut... Buntin weaves an indelible portrait of friendship, the power of influence and the kind of regret that can last a lifetime." –Harper's Bazaar
"Brilliant...Marlena so perfectly captures the bottomless need and desire of teenage girls and the reckless abandon with which they lives their lives...If you've ever been a teenage girl who loved and lived a little too hard for your own good, Marlena will resonate on a cellular level." –Nylon
"Magnetic first novel..." –Vogue
"A vivid portrait of a friendship between two teen girls in a troubled community that captures the heartaches of adolescence...At every turn, Buntin’s prose flows with the easy, confident rhythms of an accomplished writer, and though there’s really no mystery in the narrative, it reads nearly as compulsively as a thriller...The tale of two friends, one who succeeds and one who fails, isn’t new ― it’s the entire focus of Elena Ferrante’s wildly popular Neapolitan books. But it remains fascinating nonetheless, especially in Buntin’s capable hands. " –Huffington Post
"This is the page-turner for anyone who is still not over Emma Cline’s The Girls. Buntin’s debut is the story of bored fifteen-year-old Cat, who meets the pill-popping, magnetic Marlena. Addiction and drama duly follows. The story pulls and pushes you around, not unlike your own teenaged emotions, hopes, and dreams did. Expect a roller coaster."–Coveteur