Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.
Title: Pretty Thing
Author: Jennifer Nadel
Narrator: Katy Sobey
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
Language: English
Release date: 12-02-15
Publisher: Audible Studios
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
When 15-year-old Becs meets Bracken, she is convinced she's found her soul mate. So what if he's much older? He understands her, she feels free with him and when he holds her she feels safe. But is she?
Some young women in the area have been sexually assaulted. It's the talk of the school. And when Bec's best friend, Mary-Jane, becomes his latest victim, the true dangers hit home: just as Rebecca is starting to wonder about her future with Bracken, poor M-J rapidly shrinks away from life....
Set during the sweltering-hot summer of 1976, Pretty Thing is a powerful coming-of-age novel, a story of first encounters, dark obsession, broken trust and last chances. It pits true love against real life and asks: is love really all you need?
Members Reviews:
Poignant
This was a beautifully evocative story, quite heart wrenching but so atmospheric and with an authentic sense of place, I was left feeling vaguely melancholy at the end.
We meet Becs â Becs is a child of the 70âs, she and best friend MJ roam their world fairly carefree. Then Becs meets Bracken, he is older and intriguing and she falls in love. Meanwhile MJ experiences a traumatic assault and begins to withdraw from her life.
It is quite difficult to capture the ambience of this novel in a review â it is elegantly written and the characters are brought to vivid life. Becs is a typical teenager, coming of age and to an awakening of her emotions, led towards adulthood possibly way too early by her interaction and relationship with Bracken. This has the added affect that she misses how unwell and deeply disturbed MJ is becoming â the friendship falters just at the time that it is most needed.
This flows beautifully, it pretty much has its own soundtrack, the musical memories interwoven into the plot giving it that added frission, the setting is beautifully described and realistically drawn. Set against this backdrop is a tale of friendship, love and growing up, the decisions we make that can define us and the true nature of hindsight. The very definition of a coming of age tale, I would highly recommend this.
**Publisher Review Copy UK**
from FictionZeal.com re: Pretty Thing by Jennifer Nadel
This has been called a coming of age story. To me, it is a coming of a nightmare for fifteen-year-old friends Rebecca (Becs) and Mary Jane. On the same night Becs sneaks out to join some friends at a club, Mary Jane decides to stay home with her family. Becs meets Bracken who is nearly twice her age while the next morning, Mary Jane encounters a man who forces her to touch him. Such was the encounter that Mary Jane never did get over it. Becs continues to meet Bracken, even feeling proud when her friends see she has a grown man interested in her. Becs is the protagonist and I kept thinking sheâd wake up or some adult would intercede to make her realize that when youâre fifteen, a relationship with a twenty-nine-year-old man is just too out there. Becs mother had left her father and her to fend for themselves. Neither ever recouped. Becs father was too wrapped up in him own emotions to provide any solid foundation for Becs. So, Becs was very vulnerable.
This could be considered historical fiction as it is set in 1976. There are certain things that even in fiction, they are still true. Oranges are still oranges; apples are still apples. And â statutory rape is still statutory rape! However, in this novel, it appears as true love and romance.
