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Overview
There's only one way Shelby and her sisters can describe their mother: She's a sexpot. Helen Kimura collects men (and loans, spending money, and gifts of all kinds) from all over the country. Sure, she's not your typical role model, but she's also not just a pretty face and nail polish. She is confident and brave; she lives life on her own terms, and her four daughters simply adore her. These girls have been raised outside the traditional boundaries. They know how to take the back exit. They know how to dodge crazed lovers in highway car chases. They do not, however, know how to function without one another.
Then suddenly they must. A late-night phone call unexpectedly shreds the family apart, catapulting the girls across the country to live with their respective fathers. But these strong-willed sisters are, like their mother, determined to live life on their own terms, and what they do to pull their family back together is nothing short of beautiful.
At turns wickedly funny and insistently thought-provoking, Outside Beauty showcases Cynthia Kadohata's unerring ability to explore the bonds that bind.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781416998181 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Atheneum Books for Young Readers |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2009 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 265 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.80(d) |
| Lexile: | 620L (what's this?) |
| Age Range: | 12 - 17 Years |
About the Author
Reading Group Guide
★ 02/05/2024
The transcendent latest from Enger (Peace Like a River) is at once a dystopian love story, a nautical adventure, and a meditation on loss, kindness, and natural beauty. The story unfolds in a near-future America where the billionaire class has complete control and reading has been abandoned. Even so, narrator Rainy and his wife, Lark, have found happiness in a small town on the shores of Lake Superior. Their idyll ends with the arrival of a new boarder, Kellan, a fugitive from a billionaire’s work camp. After Lark is murdered by Kellan’s pursuers, Rainy leaves his home in a small sailboat, both to escape the killers and in the hope that he’ll find Lark’s spirit among the islands where they fell in love. He weathers violent storms while sailing to various lakeside towns, where outsiders are easy targets for extortion and robbery. In a desperate world where kindness is a luxury, Rainy befriends the few people willing to help him, including a young girl who joins him on his journey, and discovers a path forward. In lesser hands, Enger’s story could veer toward fatalism, but it’s clear he holds the same infectious optimism as Lark, who believes “the best futures are unforeseen.” This captivating narrative brims with hope. (Apr.)
Introduction
An April Indie Next Pick
An Amazon Top 10 Editors' Pick for the Month of April
A Most Anticipated Book of 2024 from Literary Hub
“The sweetest apocalyptic novel yet . . . Nobody describes profound joy or “blazing love” with such infectious abandon as Enger, and it’s a pleasure to be back under his influence . . . But be forewarned: Maniacal forces looming in the shadows of this novel will not stay in abeyance for long . . . In his previous novels, Enger may have whistled past the cemetery, but this time he’s digging deeper and even dancing with the bones . . . Enger casts this adventure as an Orphean quest, but once Rainy takes on a young sidekick who’s also on the lam, the enterprise feels like 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' reconceived by Cormac McCarthy.” — Ron Charles, Washington Post
"Stunning, almost pitch-perfect, with a harrowing tale and beguiling characters . . . with all its tragedy and darkness, this novel is not depressing; it feels buoyant . . . A rare, remarkable book to be kept and reread—for its beauty of language, its gentle wisdom and its steady, unflagging hope.” — Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“As readable as anything [Enger] has written, [I Cheerfully Refuse] refreshingly concerns itself less with the miraculous than with what is right before our eyes, even when we want to look away . . . In Mr. Enger's hands Lake Superior becomes a character of its own: beautiful, tempestuous, a vast chasm between two nations . . . An accomplishment that is beacon enough." — Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal
“An unusual and meaningful surprise awaits readers of Enger’s latest, which takes place largely on Lake Superior, as a man named Rainy tries to reunite with his beloved wife, Lark . . . [Enger’s] retelling of Orpheus (who went to the underworld to rescue his wife) contains the authentic hope of a born optimist.” — Los Angeles Times
"[A] modern epic . . . The story clearly borrows from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which an enchanting lyre player follows his wife into Hades, but [Rainy's] larger-than-life misadventures also evoke Odysseus, Don Quixote, and Gulliver. It’s a book that loves books . . . and the many literary references underscore a timely theme: the vital, transformative power of books, especially as weapons against willful ignorance.” — Bustle
"The novel’s ruined world, marked by book burnings, anti-intellectual sentiment, environmental disruption and casual brutality, will feel entirely too plausible for readers. Yet within its dystopian landscape, Enger’s story incorporates a strain of fabulism . . . Like turbulent Lake Superior, I Cheerfully Refuse is filled with polarities that should contradict but somehow, instead, cohere: hopeless moments infused with light and shocking acts of cruelty depicted through beautiful, memorable prose. Although the struggle to survive leaves room for little else, Rainy still finds delight in simple, ordinary things: the post-storm sun or a ripe tomato. It’s in these moments of earnest wonder that I Cheerfully Refuse is most compelling, like the brief but glorious clearing of a tempestuous sky.” — BookPage, starred review
"Magnificent . . . Comet-bright and eloquent, I Cheerfully Refuse is a perfect novel that treats dystopian circumstances as transient so long as literacy remains.” — Foreword Reviews, starred review
"There’s both a playfulness and a seriousness of purpose to the latest from the Minnesota novelist, a spirit of whimsy that keeps hope flickering even in times of darkest despair.” — Kirkus Reviews
"Enger's prose is beautiful to behold." — Booklist
"[Enger] has a knack for tackling difficult, troubled subjects and yet claiming a hopeful optimism as our right. Enger does it again with this picaresque tale set in a near-future America.” — Parade
"Part sea adventure, part thriller, with a little magic along the way. It’s a love letter to bookstores, to reading, and to hope in a dark world, told in the lush prose we expect from the author of Peace Like a River." — St. Paul Pioneer Post
"This harrowing, but beautifully told, tale is a sly paean to books, language, love and the transformative power of receiving and extending kindness. I cheerfully endorse it.” — Erin Kodicek, Senior Editor at Amazon specializing in Literary Fiction
"A book that reads like music, both battle hymn and love song for our world. A true epic—heartbreaking, terrifyingly prophetic, but above all, radically hopeful.”— Violet Kupersmith, author of Build YourHouse Around My Body"A heart-racing ballad of escape, shot-through with villainy and dignity, humor and music. Like Mark Twain, Enger gives us a full accounting of the human soul, scene by scene, wave by wave.” — Josh Ritter, singer and author of The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All
Praise for Virgil Wander
"Enger deserves to be mentioned alongside the likes of Richard Russo and Thomas McGuane. Virgil Wander is a lush crowd-pleaser about meaning and second chances and magic.”—New York Times Book Review
"[Virgil Wander] brings out the charm and downright strangeness of the defiantly normal.” ―Wall Street Journal
"Enger is a writer to be appreciated by anyone who cares about words.”—Seattle TimesPraise for Peace Like a River
"Here is an author we can trust and who we are willing to follow anywhere. Enger strikes just the right balance of instinctive storytelling, narrative play and pretty prose.” —San Francisco Chronicle
"Book lovers inclined to complain that novelists don’t write gripping yarns anymore would do well to pick up a copy of Peace Like a River, a compelling blend of traditional and artfully offbeat storytelling . . . a miracle well worth witnessing.”—Boston Globe
"The narrative picks up power and majesty, then thunders to a tragic, yet joyous, climax.”– People
"Gripping… Filled with sharp prose and vividly realized scenes, [Peace Like a River] has the makings of that rarest commodity: the literate bestseller.” – The Minneapolis Star Tribune