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Published Apr 2010
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent - she aced AP physics; athletic - a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared.
But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them - and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.
This is Anne Lamott's most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.
"Starred Review. Straddling a line between heartwarming and heartbreaking, this novel is Lamott at her most witty, observant, and psychologically astute. " - Publishers Weekly
"As she eschews the cunning one-liners and wry observations that had become her signature stock-in-trade, Lamott produces her most stylistically mature and thematically circumspect novel to date." - Booklist
"Starred Review. Lamott is consistently wonderful with this type of novel, and once again she does not disappoint." - Library Journal
"In the end, the strengths of central characters and believable complications overcome a tendency toward oracular psychobabble." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Imperfect Birds was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Anne Lamott is the author of twenty books, including the New York Times bestsellers Help, Thanks, Wow; Dusk, Night, Dawn; Traveling Mercies; and Bird by Bird, as well as seven novels. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, she lives in Northern California with her family.
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