Stay with Me - Softcover

Freymann-Weyr, Garret

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0618884041 ISBN 13: 9780618884049

Publisher: Clarion Books, 2007

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old Leila Abranel was born some twenty years after her sisters. Her elegant sisters from her father’s first marriage have lives full of work, love affairs, and travel. Leila doesn’t know either of them very well, but she loves hearing about them—details of Rebecca’s ruined marriage, Clare’s first job, and the strings of unsuitable boyfriends.

When Rebecca kills herself, Leila wants to know why. She starts by spending time with Clare and finally comes to know her as a person instead of a story. With Clare’s reluctant help, Leila tracks down Rebecca’s favorite places and tries to find her sister’s friends. Along the way, Leila meets Eamon. Eamon is thirty-one and writes for television. He thinks Leila is beautiful and smart, but he does not, he tells her, date teenagers. And yet, the months go by and Leila turns seventeen and learns that you can love someone you are not dating.

Maybe letting Eamon love her back is a mistake. Maybe she’ll never know why Rebecca did what she did. Maybe, Leila, decides, most people have a hard time figuring out which way is left or knowing when to let go and when to stay.

About this title

About the Author

Garret Freymann-Weyr grew up in New York City and often sets her books there. She went to college at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and received an MFA in film from New York University. She has written four books for young adults, including My Heartbeat, which won a Printz Honor for excellence in literature for young adults. Her books have been published in numerous countries including the Netherlands, Japan, and China. She currently lives outside Washington, D. C., with her husband. She has said that the best way to get ideas is to read a lot. “That gets you thinking in terms of story, character, and image.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 10-12. Leila Abranel's dyslexia makes both books and situations difficult to read, and her life is full of opaque relationships. At 16, she is the youngest daughter of a father who has two daughters from a previous marriage, both 20-some years older than Leila. Along with their mother, these other Abranels, Clare and Rebecca, are mysterious and intriguing to Leila, pieces of a family with an interesting history that doesn't seem to be hers. Then Rebecca commits suicide, and Leila is determined to find out why. She goes to live with Clare, and begins a search to learn what happened to Rebecca--and what will happen to her. Freyman-Weyr's beautiful My Heartbeat (2002) also dealt with the complications of family dynamics, but where that book had an immediate energy, this first-person narrative is leisurely, even as Leila pushes hard against the waves of memory and loss. Elegant and sophisticated, this is a young- adult novel only because of Leila's age; almost everyone else in the book is an adult--even Leila's lover, a 31-year-old television writer. Like Leila, readers often feel awkwardness coupled with anticipation in the adult world, and capturing this duality is one of the book's many strengths. Like Andreas Steinhofel's Center of the World (2005), this novel pushes the markers of YA fiction onward and upward. Ilene Cooper
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About this edition

• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0618884041
• ISBN 13: 9780618884049
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 308