GREAT BOOK! NO SPINE CREASES & MODERATE WEAR ON BLUE COVER. LIGHTLY AGED

GREAT BOOK! NO SPINE CREASES & MODERATE WEAR ON BLUE COVER. LIGHTLY AGED PAGES, NO MARKS IN TEXT. From Publishers Weekly\nThis strong, thoughtful first novel about a young girl and her changing relationship with her parents develops with quiet momentum beneath its cool, unadorned surface. Leslie Flynn's pretty mother, Marion, oppresses her adolescent daughter and college professor husband, Dale, with her smothering love. Marion has few interests: she gardens, feeds birds and collects china ornaments. Fearing her husband's love is ebbing, Marion prods him for reassurance, driving him to accuse her of "exhausting this entire family." When Dale moves out into his own cramped apartment and starts to date an anthropologist colleague, Leslie's coming-of-age crisis sharpens and she discovers, "It was easier now to be his friend than his daughter." As her own sexual needs intensify, she makes difficult choices. Simple details point up the family struggle to jettison the past. Before leaving, Dale cuts down Marion's beloved "dead" crabapple tree where birds nested, but green shoots reappear. Abject, now more neurotic than ever, Marion compulsively cleans house, hauling memorabilia to the dump. to shorten review/ss Leslie's growing maturity leads at last to an affecting vision of her mother's love, which may be "allowed to rest like a great lion in the shade of a tree." \nCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. \n\nFrom Library Journal\nThis first novel explores the turbulent interactions between a mother and her adolescent daughter. At first, Leslie Flynn worships her mother Marion, but when she gets older she finds that "I did wish she was different...and I wished I wasn't so afraid of becoming just like her." Marion, who initially seems to have it all together, finally reveals insecurity that suggests this model family may not be as perfect as it seems. The author does an outstanding job of keeping the reader in suspense as to how it will all turn out; she also counterbalances the Flynns' story with characters like Leslie's Aunt Holly and her family. A good look at the quiet--and not-so-quiet--rebelliousness felt by every teenager. Recommended for all fiction collections, and possibly some older YA collections. \n-Vicki Cecil, Johnson Cty. Lib., Greenwood, Ind. \nCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.