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    Hyacinth Girls: A Novel
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    Hyacinth Girls: A Novel
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    Hyacinth Girls: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Hyacinth Girls: A Novel

    Written by Lauren Frankel

    Narrated by Emily Sutton-Smith and Laura Hamilton

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Like New York Times bestseller Reconstructing Amelia, a stunning debut about a young teenager on the brink and a parent desperate to find the truth before it's too late.

    Thirteen year old Callie is accused of bullying at school, but Rebecca knows the kind and gentle girl she's raised is innocent. While Callie is eventually exonerated, threatening notes from her alleged victim, Robyn, begin to surface, and as the notes become suicidal, Rebecca is determined to save the unbalanced Robyn. As Rebecca navigates school disapproval and mean moms while trying to comfort Callie and help Robyn, she recalls her own intense betrayals and best-friendships at that age. Then, her failure to understand those closest to her led to losing them forever, and she's determined that this story will end differently. But Rebecca has failed to understand what is really happening in Callie's life, and now Callie is in terrible danger.

    This raw and beautiful story investigates the intensity of adolescent emotions and the complex identity of a teenage girl. Hyacinth Girls looks unflinchingly at how cruelty exists in all of us, and how our worst impulses can sometimes estrange us from ourselves-or save us.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMay 12, 2015
    ISBN9781501221934
    Unavailable
    Hyacinth Girls: A Novel

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    Reviews for Hyacinth Girls

    3.5/5

    23 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This is a story about bullying, told in the alternating voices of the young student, Callie, doing the bullying and her guardian, Rebecca, who is the best friend of Callie's dead mother. Rebecca comes across as quite naïve, but then perhaps most parents would react the same way if their child is accused of bullying. Once Callie takes over the narration, the truth becomes more clear. It's a frightening reality that kids face in today's world - mean kids have always been around, of course, but social media exacerbates the problem. It's a fairly good depiction, although it gets a little off-track and weird in places.
    • 3/5
      Hyacinth GirlsStory starts out with Rebecca and she's guardian for her sister who's passed away. Alternating chapters of the present where Callie is being bullied at school and how her aunt is dealing with it.Also the other chapters are about the start of Callie's life and prior to that-when Rebecca was a teen herself.I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
    • 4/5
      Hyacinth Girls by Lauren Frankel is a highly recommended, powerful novel about bullying.
      "Do you know your children?"
      That is the question Rebecca, the guardian of 13 year old Callie, wants the parents of other teens to ask themselves. She has a billboard made that features Callie's face and the pointed question erected in hopes that someone will take notice. But to tell us the story of what has happened, Rebecca goes back six months to an incident where Callie was accused of bullying another student, Robyn. Callie denies the accusations and Rebecca rallies to her side, defending her.

      As she relates the story behind the billboard, Rebecca also reminisces about the past. She has been a part of Callie's life since her birth. She was best friends with Callie's mother, Joyce, and took over as her guardian when Joyce died. Rebecca and Joyce called themselves the "hyacinth girls" and were inseparable for a time. Rebecca does her best to understand what Callie is experiencing while at the same time she is recalling past betrayals in her friendship with Joyce. But Rebecca doesn't really understand at all what Callie is going through or what role she has played in the drama unfolding.

      The narrative is separated into separate sections where the story is told first from Rebecca's point of view and then Callie's point of view. The story gets much better and acquires some depth once we can read Callie's thoughts. It's not that Rebecca's character is awful, but she seems rather simple and naive. Once Callie's voice is given, at over half way through, the narrative takes on more depth. Included throughout all sections are short numbered installments detailing the history of Callie's interaction through messages and texts with Robyn, the girl she was accused of bullying.

      While the writing is quite good and the story timely, I've lowered my rating one star simply because of the length of the first section told in Rebecca's voice. The true reality of what is going on doesn't come to life until you start to read Callie's story. As most people know, teens keep secrets and you will likely suspect that there are secrets, but won't quite understand the whole story until later, even the story of Callie's childhood and her parents. This is a novel that deserves some attention. Mean girls have always existed and nothing seems to change that equation. (Look at Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye.)

      Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Crown Publishing for review purposes.
    • 4/5
      Most YA novels celebrate female friendships, but this one recognizes the possibility of deliberate or accidental poisonings. Callie, adopted by Rebecca, her mother's lifelong best friend after the deaths of both parents, has two best friends of her own. Together the three girls torment their high school with their disdain and their lethal nicknames for the other students. When Callie herself is tagged by the two others, her life is ruined and she lashes out against another girl. Rebecca, unable to accept Callie's actions, defends her until the truth emerges and Rebecca is forced to look back on her own friendship with Callie's parents, her best friend Joyce and her cousin Curtis.A decent read, with some obvious twists and turns.
    • 5/5
      Joyce and Rebecca are best friends growing up in Connecticut in the 80s. When Joyce becomes a teen mom, Rebecca steps in to help. Joyce and Rebecca raise Callie together and when Joyce unexpectedly dies, Rebecca becomes Callie’s guardian.Review of Hyacinth GirlsThe first part of Hyacinth Girls is told from the first-person POV of Rebecca, who comes off as a scattered, overprotective and clueless simpleton. I was frustrated with this portion of the book and almost stopped reading. Rebecca’s penchant for daydreaming about “gateway men” who come to save her from her life seemed more like the fantasies of an adolescent girl than those of a woman in her mid-thirties. I found her character one-dimensional and irritating.However, I am extremely glad I stuck with this story. Just as the author obviously intended, readers are given vital pieces of the story in increments as the book progresses. You think it’s going one way, but then Hyacinth Girls takes a heartbreaking and nasty turn when Callie’s POV takes over. Things are not nearly what they seemed to be in the beginning of the book.Lauren Frankel’s writing comes alive with passion, angst and anguish when we read Callie’s story in her own words. So much so, that Hyacinth Girls could have been written by two entirely separate authors. I wondered if this was a deliberate writing strategy on the author’s part – one that I hope doesn’t backfire since not everyone might be as willing to read Rebecca’s narrative to get to the best part of the book. This book’s subject is too important and timely to ignore.If anyone thinks that this level of bullying doesn’t exist among middle school girls, they’re wrong. It happens more often than we’d like to think. In an age where social media is the go-to form of communication for nearly every teenager, anyone's life could easily be destroyed with one click by just one vindictive youngster.As a parent, I was moved by this book. I think it’s a story that needs to be read by parents and children. The ending was slightly unrealistic, but this is fiction so it’s forgivable. I would highly recommend Hyacinth Girls to anyone who interacts with tweens and teens.

      1 person found this helpful