BARNES & NOBLE | Stay by Deb Caletti, Simon Pulse | NOOK Book (eBook), Paperback, Hardcover

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Stay (eBook) Pub. Date: 4/5/2011 Publisher: Simon Pulse
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Stay Pub. Date: 3/20/2012 Publisher: Simon Pulse
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Stay Pub. Date: 4/5/2011 Publisher: Simon Pulse

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Overview

Now in paperback, a dark, romantic novel of love and obsession from National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti.

Clara’s relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it’s almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is—and what he’s willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won’t let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough....

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

To escape her obsessive ex-boyfriend, Clara and her single father spend the summer in a rented house in a small beach community called Bishop Rock. In alternating chapters, she recounts her increasingly frightening relationship with controlling Christian, as well as her attempts to recover, now that “no one back home knew where I was.” In this gripping, layered novel, Clara is stalked, first by cell phone and later in person, by Christian. Clara is also haunted by her own feelings of culpability: “The thing is, it can feel good to make someone lose all control.” She is not the only one with ghosts: the legends of Bishop Rock are full of them, and many people around her have chilling stories, including her father, a “smart-ass” writer hiding a big family secret. Clara’s unease mounts as she grapples with her emotions surrounding the past and the impending threat of Christian’s arrival. Fear has made Clara a fiercely good observer of detail, and Caletti’s powerfully descriptive prose serves her character well, as she provides insight into ideas about love, power, and who we forgive. Ages 12–up. (Apr.)

Children's Literature

Clara Oates has a boyfriend problem. Last year's boyfriend was a slacker. This year's is so dangerously obsessed with her that, as the book opens, Clara and her father, a crime writer, are escaping from their home in Seattle to a small fishing town on the coast. The novel is told in chapters that alternate between flashbacks of her relationship with Christian during her senior year of high school, and the present, the summer following graduation. Although readers learn in the second chapter that Clara has safely extricated herself from Christian, suspense remains high. How badly did he mistreat her? How will she recover emotionally from a relationship that was both alluring and frightening? Caletti speaks directly and convincingly to her readers about the obsession that the teens feel for each other. And, as narrator, Clara speaks directly also through first-person narrative and clever footnoted asides. A sub-plot concerns her father and his growing relationship with two women in town, especially Sylvie, for whom Clara works, both of whom he knew many years ago. Clara senses that they know something about her mother's death, which she has been told was caused by an aneurysm. When her father confesses that he had an affair with Sylvie and that Clara's mother committed suicide, she does not want to listen. But, because untold stories have a weight that can drown you, she knows she must. By the end of the summer, following a harrowing (if trite) scene with Christian on a stormy beach, father and daughter decide to stay in the small town as each pursues healthy new relationships and Clara decides what to do next. Dialogue includes some swearing, and there are references, though no explicit descriptions, of sex scenes. This is a rich, believable story with important but not heavy-handed lessons. Reviewer: Cynthia Levinson

More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Interweaving a young woman's past and present experiences in alternating chapters, this novel reveals how Clara's romance with Christian tips slowly but inexorably toward obsession during her junior and senior years of high school. After graduation, Clara and her father slip off to a Washington beach town in secret to escape her now ex-boyfriend's frightening and unpredictable reach into her current life. In this cunningly crafted narrative, readers will slowly come to understand the danger posed by the cute Scandinavian boy who swept Clara off her feet and how what feels like love can crack and crumble when an insecure and possessive guy won't accept their breakup. Her summer job at a lighthouse and the friends she and her father meet, especially Finn, who sails his family's tourist boat with his brother, make Clara hopeful about the future. The suspense rises like the tide while readers applaud the teen's healthy new life and relationships but fear that she hasn't seen the last of the unstable and unpredictable Christian. Characters and new love ring true and would make this fine chick lit in and of itself, but the looming specter of the ex-boyfriend finding Clara makes it a novel with an appealing edge. Fear tinges this summer romance and underscores the issue of abusive and claustrophobic relationships among teens.—Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA

Kirkus Reviews

A dissection of an unhealthy, obsessive relationship as seen in its aftermath. Clara catches Christian's eye from across a crowded gymnasium, and they quickly become an exclusive couple. However, Clara soon realizes that exclusivity can have its downsides, as Christian's devotion takes a frightening turn and he begins stalking Clara. To protect his daughter and to give her "a place to breathe for a while," Clara's father whisks her away to a sleepy coastal town without notifying anyone of their new location. Through chapters that alternate between Clara's present life at the beach and her rocky relationship with Christian, readers bear witness to Clara's attempts to confront her fear and grow. Adding layers of depth to this text and its characters are several auxiliary relationships, including a dynamic bond between Clara and her father, that all with time are seamlessly woven together. Quirky footnotes are sprinkled throughout attempting to inject humor and tidbits of background to illuminate Clara's past; however, they are often disruptive and easily skipped. Despite salty language, sex and violence are not graphically depicted, making this a safe read for younger teens. While her story's not particularly new, Calletti knows her audience and tells it well. (Fiction. 12-15)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781442403741
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication date: 3/20/2012
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 140,229
Age range: 12 years
Lexile: 0700L (what's this?)
Product dimensions: 5.56 (w) x 8.02 (h) x 0.85 (d)

Meet the Author

Deb Caletti

Deb Caletti is the award-winning author of The Queen of Everything; Honey, Baby, Sweetheart; and The Nature of Jade, among others. In addition to being a National Book Award finalist, Deb’s work has gained other distinguished recognition, including the PNBA Best Book Award, the Washington State Book Award, and School Library Journal’s Best Book award, as well as finalist citations for the California Young Reader Medal and the PEN USA Literary Award. She lives with her family in Seattle. You can visit her at DebCaletti.com and become a fan on Facebook.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

First off, I’ve never told this story to anyone. Not the entire thing anyway, and not entirely truthfully. I’m only telling it now for one reason, and that’s because an untold story has a weight that can submerge you, sure as a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean. I learned that. This kind of story, those kind of things kept secret—they have the power to keep you hidden forever, and most of all from yourself. The ghosts from that drowned ship, they keep haunting.

So here is the story. Sit back and make yourself comfortable and all that.

I met him at a basketball game.

Wait. You should also know that another friend of mine, Annie Willows, had asked me to go with her and her friends to El Corazon that night to hear some band and that I didn’t go. If I had gone, all this might never have happened. The way two people can end up in the same place, find each other in a crowd, and change their lives and the lives of the people around them forever . . . It makes you believe in fate. And fate gives love some extra authority. Like it’s been stamped with approval from above, if you believe in above. A godly green light. Some destined significance.

Anyway.

My school was playing his, and I was there with my friend Shakti, who was watching her boyfriend Luke, number sixteen, who was at that moment sitting on the bench and drumming his fingers on his knee like he did when he was nervous. Inside the gym there was that fast, high energy crackle of competition and screaming fans and the squeak of tennis shoes stopping and starting on shiny floors.

He was with another girl; that was one thing. I was aware of her only vaguely as she moved away from him. She maneuvered sideways through the crowd, purse over her shoulder, heading to the bathroom, maybe. His eyes followed her and then landed on me, and by the time she came back, it was over for her, though she didn’t know it. That sounds terrible, and I still feel bad about it. But something had already been set in motion, and I wonder and wonder how things would have been if I’d have just let that moment pass, the one where our eyes met. If I had just taken Shakti’s arm and moved off, letting the electrical jolt that passed between us fade off, letting the girl return to his side, letting fate head off in another direction entirely, where he would have kept his eyes fixed on the girl with the purse or on another girl entirely.

My father, Bobby Oates^*, said that love at first sight should send you running, if you know what’s good for you. It’s your dark pieces having instant recognition with their dark pieces, he says. You’re an idiot if you think it means you’ve met your soul mate. So I was an idiot. He looked so nice. He was nice. After Dylan Ricks, I was looking for nice. Dylan Ricks once held my arm behind my back and then twisted so hard that I heard something pop.

“Thirsty!” I yelled to Shakti, and she nodded. I moved away from her, followed the line of his eyes until I was standing next to him. I wish you knew me, because you’d appreciate what this meant. I would never just go walking up to some guy. I would never ignore the fact that his girlfriend was right then in the bathroom putting on new lip gloss. Never. I was nice and my friends were nice, which meant we lacked the selfish, sadistic overconfidence of popularity. But I didn’t care about that girl right then. It’s awful, and I’m sorry, but it was true. I kind of even hated me for it, but it was like I had to do what I was going to do. I can’t explain it. I wish I could. He was very tall and broad shouldered, white-blond hair swooped over his forehead, good-looking, oh, yeah, with those impossible, perfectly designed Scandinavian features. Still, it wasn’t just his looks. It was some pull. The ball hit hard against the backboard, which shuddered and clattered. The ref’s whistle shrieked and the crowd yelled its cheers and protests.

I held my hands up near my ears. “Loud,” I said to him.

He leaned in close. His voice surprised me. He had this accent. It was lush and curled, with the kind of lilt and richness that made you instantly think of distant cities and faraway lands—the kind of city you’d see in a foreign film, with a snow-banked river winding through its center, stone bridges crossing to an ornate church. Ice castles and a royal family and coats lined with fur. The other guys in that gym—they watched ESPN and slunked in suburban living rooms and slammed the doors of their mothers’ minivans. See—I had already made him into someone he would never be, and I didn’t know it then, but he was already doing the same with me, too.

“I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” he said. “I actually hate sports.”

I laughed. “How many people here are secretly wishing they were somewhere else?”

He looked around. Shook his head. “Just us.”

I was wishing that, all right. I was wishing we were both somewhere else. A somewhere together. A warm heat was starting at my knees, working its way up. “I’ve got to . . .” I gestured toward Shakti.

“Right,” he said.

I made my way back to Shakti, who was standing on her toes at the sidelines, trying to see Luke, who had been called in to the game and who was now dribbling the ball down the court in his shiny gold shorts. “He’s in,” she said. “Oh, please, God, let him not do what he did last time.”

But I was too distracted to actually watch and see if Luke would accidentally pass the ball to an opposing teammate as he had during the last game. My focus had shifted, my whole focus—one moment he wasn’t there and then he was, and my mind and body were buzzing with awareness and hope and uncertainty. You have ordinary moments and ordinary moments and more ordinary moments, and then, suddenly, there is something monumental right there. You have past and future colliding in the present, your own personal Big Bang, and nothing will ever be the same.

That was the point, there, then, when I should have shaken it off and gone on. I see it like an actual road in my mind, forking off. I should have kept my eyes on Luke with his sky-length legs and skinny chest; I should have cheered when he passed that ball just as he should have, to number twenty-four, who shot a clean basket. I should have stayed in that moment and moved on from that moment, when Shakti grabbed my arm and squeezed. Instead, I watched him as he headed through the crowd, and he looked back at me and our eyes met again before he disappeared.

It was already too late. Basically, two springs and two summers and the sea and the haunting had all already happened.

^* It sounds familiar because you have heard of him. Crime writer, or, as the critics say, “contemporary noir.” Her Emerald Eyes, among others. Yeah, you saw the movie, too.

Customer Reviews

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Lauren817

Posted June 22, 2011

more from this reviewer

Deb Caletti's Best Book Yet

I read Deb Caletti's The Nature of Jade a couple of years ago and was completely blown away by it, but every other book of hers I've tried to read after that I have failed to finish. Though, with Stay I rediscovered just why I fell in love with Deb's writing and world building all those years ago. Stay is intense, startling, beautiful, and well written. It has a fabulous setting, easy to relate to and likable main characters, and a premise's execution that is nothing short of brilliant. This book is simply contemporary fiction at its absolute best, and I can't wait to suggest it to others come its April release!

Stay tells the story of Clara, a girl who's on the run from the the boy she thought she loved, the boy she thought was perfect for her... When Clara first meet Christian she fell hard for him. He was handsome, eye-catching, and he made her feel special. Though, soon after their relationship began, he started to show a side of him Clara never expected to see...a side that's possessive to the extreme to the point where it's even a bit abusive, and after a particularly bad episode Clara's heads to the beach with her father to start over. But will she truly be able to run away from the past she most wants to forgot? And when she's faced with her past demons, will she be able to come out on top? Only time will tell in this read of one girl and her path of recovery.

Clara... She's a girl who constantly kept me on a roller coaster of emotions as more was reveled and developed about her past and her current state. At times, I wanted to congratulate her on her current strength to pull away from a guy who was abusive, to say she was fearless and brave and strong, but at other times I wanted to yell at her past self for getting in this huge mess to begin with. Though, that made her character even more more real to me, because as anyone knows, everyone makes mistakes. They see the good in people they shouldn't, and they get in bad situations because of it, but what counts is if they able to break away from everything before its too late, which Clara did and I give her props for that. What I most enjoyed about her story was seeing her develop a future for herself without Christan, because not only did it lead to her getting to know some pretty amazing people (*cough* Finn *cough*) but it brought great development to her character. I also loved her reading about her relationship with her father, because not only where they hilarious together, but it also brought many touching, heartwarming as well as heartbreaking scenes to the table.

As said before, the premise's execution of this story was brilliant, because not only did I love how Deb constantly switched the reader so seamlessly between past and present, but she did so in a way that kept the reader on their toes, wondering if Clara would ever truly be able to get away from Christian, as well as come over her internal struggle of getting over the fact she still kind of loved him.

Last but not least, Deb's writing in this was fabulous! As I'm sure you can tell by my review, Deb did a fantastic job with world building, character development, and plot development. Best of all, I loved how she created such a vivid setting!

In all, Stay is a stunning and intense read of one girl's path to recovery. If this isn't contemporary fiction at its best I don't know what is.

Highly, highly recommended.

Grade: A+

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted December 31, 2011

I love this book!

This book is absolutely amazing! I couldnt stop reading it. This book draws you into it and accually makes you feel emotion for the characters. It is worth every cent!!!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted May 25, 2012

Derby

Gum
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Anonymous

Posted May 18, 2012

Anon

Should i read it ??
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Anonymous

Posted April 17, 2012

Great read by Caletti. The tension between Clara and Christian i

Great read by Caletti. The tension between Clara and Christian is intense and as the story unfolds it is hard to put down. I didn't want Clara to make the wrong choices or overlook something that could be so important to her view of love.
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Anonymous

Posted March 13, 2012

Ehhhhhh

This book is OK

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Dazzlamb

Posted March 6, 2012

more from this reviewer

STAY offers a frighteningly realistic concept of a young love whose end reveals the deeply hidden and dark feelings accompanying it!

STAY is a contemporary novel that is different to many other YA prototypes. It has romance and at the same time suspenseful elements.

The title STAY is really appropriate, because this story is all about the balance of right and wrong decisions, leaving and staying (safe), being with someone or leaving that one you once loved so you can become the person you really are.

This novel talks about the serious topic of a love that turns into an obsession and the consequences of making the decision to end it. Chapters of real-time actions alternate with flashbacks, so that the origin to our current situation is revealed piece by piece. We are given the info that our heroine is headed to a place she shouldn't leave unless she doesn’t want to stay safe. It are mostly the flashbacks that keep feeding us with more background information about characters and story.

It's a fast read thanks to this narrative technique and a really good writing. STAY is made up of only a few relevant characters, which was totally ok since this type of story doesn't need that many to convey meaning.

Caletti did a good job in constructing the characters, because they appear real. I noticed that I didn't care that much about the characters itself, but more about the outcome of the story in general. I was surprised how easily Clara, our protagonist, throws herself into another romance, considering that she is still followed by her ex-boyfriend. Still I liked to see her opening up for a new love. Clara was ok, but her dad was just a bit rough and with his cussing all the time very inconvenient.

Caletti also included footnotes to mention some random extra facts, further ideas and explanations. What could be a funny and original idea, really bothered me, because the additional notes were often useless blather and reminded me too much of a scientific work.

THE VERDICT

I give it 3,5/5 stars.

This is a serious novel about the delicate balance between love and hate, staying and leaving. STAY is a book that definitely promises a high emotional involvement.
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Anonymous

Posted March 3, 2012

Hehehehe...Candy Land in French!funny

Brena duke is the original who started it so dont say u did or any one else. I love you Brena. Where ever u r...lost in LeLe land...ha
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Anonymous

Posted February 2, 2012

This book was really great

I thought this book book was great. There was no dissapointments. The story was just so great I couldnt put it down. I was on the edge of my seat the whole entire time I read the book.The desription in the book is just so great that you feel like youre watching a movie. I love this book. Very intersting.
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Anonymous

Posted December 27, 2011

Amazing

I thought this book was great! I was a little confused at first but it got better.
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Anonymous

Posted December 26, 2011

Good Book

Slow in the beginning but then when things start to speed up they get real intresting and for me it felt as if i was her in the book. Really made my heart pace so fast.So overall great book
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Evangeline_Han

Posted July 8, 2011

more from this reviewer

Well-woven story

When Clara Oates first laid eyes on Christian Nilsson, it was love at first sight. He was sweet, nice and they instantly clicked. But, the longer they spend time with each other, the insecure and possessive side of Christian begins to be revealed more and more. Initially, Clara dismisses it as jealousy but soon finds herself trapped in a web being wound tighter and tighter around her. Now, Clara is spending summer at the seaside with her father. She wants to escape from Christian but deep in her heart, she senses the danger that always accompanies the obsessive Christian. I found Stay to be a suspense-filled book. Judging from the hints littered in the book, there was no doubt that there will be some kind of showdown between Clara and Christian. The suspense was what kind of showdown would it be? The book is written in a first-person voice and almost every chapter alternates between flashbacks of Clara's past with Christian and her present holiday with her father. Midway through the book, it is also revealed how Clara's mother had died. I like the intensity of the story and how Deb Caletti manages to weave the "then" and "present" stories of Clara's life together so that both parts blend in beautifully. After reading (actually reading, not skimming!) the whole book, I still couldn't figure how the title of the book fits into the whole story. There was a very short part of the story where "stay" seems to be emphasized but other than that, I don't know how the title is supposed to be relevant to the book. Overall, the plot of the book made it a wonderful read although the language bothered me a little. There were some explicit words used and I didn't like that.
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Collette_Kladdagh

Posted July 2, 2011

Pretty good read

Stay kept my attention the whole time. I enjoyed reading it, but the ending was abrupt.
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amanda12311

Posted July 1, 2011

more from this reviewer

not as good as i thought it would be

i was not very impressed by this book. The organization and plot i felt were unorganized and a little frustrating to follow. Every other chapter jumped back and forth between now and the past giving minimum information and mostly just adding confusion to the writing . i felt the book was okay but not as good as it could have been.
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Anonymous

Posted June 25, 2011

Must-Read from Caletti

I read this book in a matter of hours and was struck by how true the whole situation seemed---the heartbreak, danger, and ultimately the fight to move on from the past was so incredibly well written. One of the best books I have read this year and I know I will read it again and again.
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Nattjo

Posted June 7, 2011

Grrreat!

An intense story that you don't want to put down!
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GGKL

Posted May 29, 2011

more from this reviewer

Didn't keep my intrest

A good story but it was a little slow
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epicrat

Posted May 28, 2011

more from this reviewer

Real enough, but not enough to connect with main character

Clara thought love at first sight would be magical and it was at first, but soon it becomes apparent that this oh-so-perfect-love gets bitten by a little green-eyed bug that refuses to let go. She thought nothing could be worse than the physical abuse from her last relationship, but nothing prepared her for the emotional rollercoaster that Christian took her on. When Clara and her father go into hiding at Bishop Rock, she hopes that she can learn to forget Christian and move on with her life.

I am on the fence about Stay - the story seemed real enough, meaningful enough, but I didn't connect well with Clara. She came across as a little too tense, which probably had to do with her desire to protect herself from getting hurt again by people who she thought loved her. It works for her character, but I wish she could have opened herself a little bit more easily with me as a reader. I also wasn't convinced that Clara grew a whole lot in this book, especially when a new (and first healthy) relationship blossoms. Love happens when it happens, but I would have thought there would have been more resistance from Clara before she attempted another relationship. Especially when she was fresh from the previous bad experience.
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8701603

Posted May 13, 2011

So good

I really lived it and i had never put it down.
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pagese

Posted May 12, 2011

more from this reviewer

Book Review: Stay

I really wanted to love this book. Finally, a story that paints the possessive and controlling boy the way he should be. I wanted to see it in this genre because this type of hehavior does not equal love and devotion. And in the end, it can be very hard to walk away.

In all reality, I though the author does a fantastic job telling us the back story. The book switches back and forth from the present to the past. Clara is already at the beach with her father and she's struggling with her thoughts on what has happened. We gradually get flashbacks of her relationship with Christian. I think the author gets it right. Christian seems wonderful at first, the perfect boyfriend. He's very slow to show his true colors. I think the first couple of time, Clara writes it off and vows to be more careful with what she says and does. By the time he is in full control, the relationship has been going on for so long that Clara doesn't know how to leave. She loves him and thinks he loves her. In her head, she's the one that needs to be better. Which is so how this often works. (I had a friend who was in an abusive relationship in high school. She ultimately died from an accident that occurred because she was unable to tell him no. Something Clara says in this story sounded like something my friends said to her mom right before the accident).

Ultimately, it was the present tense that I just couldn't get into. Clara's behavior just didn't fit with the same person we meet in the flashbacks. For someone who just got out of a controlling relationship (and the one before that seemed abusive), she seems to jump right into the next one. I liked Finn, and he really seemed to understand Clara. Even after Clara tells him what happened, he takes it all in stride. But, it was too soon. I didn't trust Clara's judgement, even if Finn really is a great guy. Granted, there are still times you can tell Christian's voice is still in her head telling her what to say and do. I think she would have been more like that the entire time.

I also thought the side story with her father was distracting. It was too much going on it one book. If the focus would have been Clara, her relationship with Christian and Finn, I think it would have felt more even. For Clara to have to endure all she does in the story is just overload. She handles it all beautifully though, and I'm sure she's a much stronger women because of it.
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Product Details

Meet the Author

Deb Caletti

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Deb Caletti's Best Book Yet

I love this book!

Derby

Anon

Great read by Caletti. The tension between Clara and Christian i

Ehhhhhh

STAY offers a frighteningly realistic concept of a young love whose end reveals the deeply hidden and dark feelings accompanying it!

Hehehehe...Candy Land in French!funny

This book was really great

Amazing

Good Book

Well-woven story

Pretty good read

not as good as i thought it would be

Must-Read from Caletti

Grrreat!

Didn't keep my intrest

Real enough, but not enough to connect with main character

So good

Book Review: Stay