A Gorgeous Excitement: A Novel

ISBN: 0593798864

Author: Weiner, Cynthia

Condition: New

One young womans summer of infinite possibility takes a turn she never saw coming in this 1980s coming-of-age tale [thats] chillingly compelling. Get ready to be transported.-People (Best Books of the Month)I havent felt this kind of excitement reading a story set in the 80s since I first discovered Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz, and Bret Easton Ellis.-Margarita Montimore, bestselling author of Oona Out of OrderA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Kirkus Reviews, CrimeReadsThere are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mothers depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible-when her mother isnt lying in bed for days, shes lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly wrong, Nina is the talk of Flanagans, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates. It doesnt help that shes Jewish, an outsider among the blue-eyed blondes who populate this rarified world. She can fit in, kind of, with enough alcohol and prescription drugs stolen from her parents medicine cabinet.Flanagans is where she pines for the handsome, preppy, and charismatic Gardner Reed. Every girl wants to sleep with him and every guy wants to be him. After shes introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges headlong into her pursuit of Gardner, oblivious to the warning signs. When a new medication seemingly frees her mother from darkness, and Nina and Gardner grow closer, it seems like Nina might finally get what she wants. But at what cost?Freud called cocaine a gorgeous excitement, but a gorgeous excitement for the wrong guy can be lethal.