Beauty and self-worth
Montana lives amid a father's focus on flaws and a culture that prizes beauty; her sister's cosmetic surgery changes how Montana sees their relationship.
Book details
Corey Ann Haydu - Author
This is an emotionally intense coming-of-age story about wanting to be seen, making imperfect choices and discovering that love or friendship cannot simply replace a complicated family life.
Montana and her sister, Arizona, are named after the mountainous states their mother left them for. But Montana is a New York City girl through and through, and as the city heats up, she's stepping into the most intense summer of her life. With Arizona wrapped up in her college world and their father distracted by yet another divorce, Montana's been immersing herself in an intoxicating new friendship with a girl from her acting class. Karissa, 23 to Montana's 17, is bold, imperfectly beautiful, and unafraid of being vulnerable. She's everything Montana would like to become. But the friendship with Karissa is driving a wedge between Montana and her sister, and the more of her own secrets Karissa reveals, the more Montana has to wonder if Karissa's someone she can really trust. In the midst of her uncertainty, Montana finds a heady distraction in Bernardo. He's serious and spontaneous, and he looks at Montana in the way she wants to be seen. For the first time, Montana understands how you can become both lost and found in somebody else. But when that love becomes everything, where does it leave the rest of her imperfect life?
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Sign in for personalised guidanceThis is an emotionally intense coming-of-age story about wanting to be seen, making imperfect choices and discovering that love or friendship cannot simply replace a complicated family life.
Montana lives amid a father's focus on flaws and a culture that prizes beauty; her sister's cosmetic surgery changes how Montana sees their relationship.
Seventeen-year-old Montana becomes closely involved with Karissa, who is twenty-three, bold, vulnerable and sometimes unstable in Montana's eyes.
Bernardo becomes a powerful romantic focus, and Montana considers how becoming lost or found in another person affects the rest of her life.
The story contains intense emotions and angst, family disruption through divorce, appearance-focused attitudes, intense romantic feelings, impulsive decisions and an age-unequal friendship whose boundaries may merit attention.
This is a grounded book brief while Suitabook strengthens the analysis: the current material supports only a cautious reading.
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