★ 03/28/2016
A young woman looks back on her upbringing in Quebec and her time in a psychiatric ward, in Marjara’s emotionally charged debut. Lila, the daughter of Indian immigrants, has always been uncomfortable with her body, which she perceives as chubby, especially compared to her lean younger sister and beautiful older cousin. When Lila realizes that food is something she can control, she becomes an expert at calorie counting, envisioning a svelte inner “faerie” persona (“The burdensome identity I had carried for so many years had finally withered away, and the faerie had taken me over”). When her weight dips dangerously low, she is admitted for psychiatric help at age 17. At Four East, she bucks the rules, hides food, compulsively exercises, and recognizes a kindred spirit in new patient Alyssa—an alliance that forces Lila to confront whether she wishes to live. Marjara, writing in Lila’s affecting voice, delicately captures the deep insecurities of teenhood, the pressure of trying to fit into one ideal of beauty, and the complexity of anorexia with lovely, flowing prose, underscoring the devastating effects that mental illness can have on an entire family. Ages 14–up. (June)
Just days before her eighteenth birthday, Lila has resolved to end her life. The horror of becoming an adult, and leaving her childhood behind, has broken her heart. Faerie, a novel for young people, is the fierce yet gently unfolding story of a hyper- imaginative girl who is on a collision course to womanhood. She likens herself to a half-human fairy creature who does not belong in the earthly world; but in the cold light of day she is a psychiatric patient at a hospital, where she is being treated for anorexia - her sickness driven by the irrational need to undo nature and thwart the passage of time. Lila tells the story of how she ended up on the Four East wing: we flash back to her childhood in the eighties, growing up in a small town as the overweight brown kid of Punjabi immigrant parents: her father, a literary scholar whom she idolizes, and her mother, a housewife - "the most female of all females who found comfort in cooking." Faerie weaves these passages with Lila's downward spiral into life-threatening illness, her budding sexuality, and her complicated recovery in hospital that comes with a price. Written with candor and heartbreaking lyricism, Faerie is a plaintive yet ultimately life-affirming love letter to the bold, flawed splendor that is childhood. Eisha Marjara has written and directed several award-winning films, including the critically acclaimed NFB docudrama Desperately Seeking Helen. Her latest, House for Sale, has won numerous film festival awards. Faerie is her first novel. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.
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Faerie
Just days before her eighteenth birthday, Lila has resolved to end her life. The horror of becoming an adult, and leaving her childhood behind, has broken her heart. Faerie, a novel for young people, is the fierce yet gently unfolding story of a hyper- imaginative girl who is on a collision course to womanhood. She likens herself to a half-human fairy creature who does not belong in the earthly world; but in the cold light of day she is a psychiatric patient at a hospital, where she is being treated for anorexia - her sickness driven by the irrational need to undo nature and thwart the passage of time. Lila tells the story of how she ended up on the Four East wing: we flash back to her childhood in the eighties, growing up in a small town as the overweight brown kid of Punjabi immigrant parents: her father, a literary scholar whom she idolizes, and her mother, a housewife - "the most female of all females who found comfort in cooking." Faerie weaves these passages with Lila's downward spiral into life-threatening illness, her budding sexuality, and her complicated recovery in hospital that comes with a price. Written with candor and heartbreaking lyricism, Faerie is a plaintive yet ultimately life-affirming love letter to the bold, flawed splendor that is childhood. Eisha Marjara has written and directed several award-winning films, including the critically acclaimed NFB docudrama Desperately Seeking Helen. Her latest, House for Sale, has won numerous film festival awards. Faerie is her first novel. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940171227395 |
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Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
Publication date: | 06/07/2016 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Age Range: | 10 - 13 Years |
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