Weightless by Sarah Bannan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015
352 pages, kindle edition
Source: Netgalley
Release Date: March 12th 2015
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Synopsis (from Goodreads):
Adamsville wasn't a place that people came to. It was a place you were from, where you were born, where you were raised, where you stayed…
Before Carolyn Lessing arrived, nothing much had ever happened in Adamsville, Alabama. Each week, at dinner tables and in the high school assembly, everyone would pray for the football team to win. Each year, the Adams High hotlist would be updated, and girls would rise and fall within its ranks. Each day, everyone lived by the unwritten rules that cheerleaders did not hang out with the swim team, seniors did not date freshmen and the blistering heat was something that should never be remarked upon. But then the new girl came.
All Carolyn's social media could reveal was that she had moved from New Jersey, she had 1075 friends – and she didn't have a relationship status. In beach photos with boys who looked like Abercrombie models she seemed beautiful, but in real life she was so much more. She was perfect.
This was all before the camera crews arrived, before it became impossible to see where rumour ended and truth began, and before the Annual Adamsville Balloon Festival, when someone swore they saw the captain of the football team with his arm around Carolyn, and cracks began to appear in the dry earth.
Before Carolyn Lessing arrived, nothing much had ever happened in Adamsville, Alabama. Each week, at dinner tables and in the high school assembly, everyone would pray for the football team to win. Each year, the Adams High hotlist would be updated, and girls would rise and fall within its ranks. Each day, everyone lived by the unwritten rules that cheerleaders did not hang out with the swim team, seniors did not date freshmen and the blistering heat was something that should never be remarked upon. But then the new girl came.
All Carolyn's social media could reveal was that she had moved from New Jersey, she had 1075 friends – and she didn't have a relationship status. In beach photos with boys who looked like Abercrombie models she seemed beautiful, but in real life she was so much more. She was perfect.
This was all before the camera crews arrived, before it became impossible to see where rumour ended and truth began, and before the Annual Adamsville Balloon Festival, when someone swore they saw the captain of the football team with his arm around Carolyn, and cracks began to appear in the dry earth.
My Review:
The story is sole stated around Adamsville high, a school in a small town in Alabama, beinning when a new girl starts. This in itself is new, noboby ever moves to Adamsville. The new girl, Carolyn, is instantly popular. She fits straight into the cheerleader clique, wih her stick thin body, pale skin in effortlessly perfect hair. Nobody notices that maybe she is a little to thin, as they are all consumed by ency. The story is told as someone looking back on things, looking back on how what they witnessed caused the events that occurred to happen.
Its told in the second person which is something I haven’t come across before, everything is ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ ‘he’ or even ‘she’. It emphasizes the idea of the cliques, the fact that Carolyn is an outsider. The people telling the story are not the ‘popular’ girls they aren’t even in the cheerleader clique. They just stand in the back, and let things happen. When they first visit Carolyn’s house they notice the scales. The chart next to them. The pills. Instantly the details of Carolyn;s private life are updated to facebook and it starts slowly Carolyn becomes a victim to the girls at the high school, she becomes even more of an outsider.
Its told in the second person which is something I haven’t come across before, everything is ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ ‘he’ or even ‘she’. It emphasizes the idea of the cliques, the fact that Carolyn is an outsider. The people telling the story are not the ‘popular’ girls they aren’t even in the cheerleader clique. They just stand in the back, and let things happen. When they first visit Carolyn’s house they notice the scales. The chart next to them. The pills. Instantly the details of Carolyn;s private life are updated to facebook and it starts slowly Carolyn becomes a victim to the girls at the high school, she becomes even more of an outsider.
My Rating:
Author Bio:
Sarah attended Georgetown University from 1996- 2000, majoring in English (with a concentration in literature and literary history) and minoring in Theatre. She had a number of influential professors while attending university, including John Glavin, David Kadlec and Norma Tilden, and, from 1998 – 1999, she moved to Ireland for a year of study at Trinity College Dublin.
Following graduation from Georgetown, Sarah moved to Ireland permanently in 2000. She has worked in various arts organisations , including the Irish Film Institute and the Lilliput Press. Since 2007, she has been the Head of Literature with the Arts Council. In 2010 – 2011, she completed the Faber Academy’s Novel Writing Course in Dublin.
Sarah married her husband, Duncan Keegan, in 2004. In 2011, they had their first child, Niamh Ann Keegan. They live in a small cottage in the north inner city of Dublin. Sarah’s parents now live in Virginia. WEIGHTLESS is her first novel.
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