Ocean in My Ears (eBook)

Meagan Macvie (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
300 Seiten
Ooligan Press (Verlag)
978-1-932010-95-4 (ISBN)

Infos

High school senior Meri Miller is ready to walk the heck out of Soldonta, Alaska, where salmon fishing is the primary source of entertainment. But, as she grapples with increasingly complicated relationships—family, friends, and of course, boys—she can't help but wonder if she really is ready for the world beyond her backyard.

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Meri Miller lives in Soldotna, Alaska. Never heard of it? That's because in Slowdotna the most riveting activities for a teenager are salmon fishing and grabbing a Big Gulp at the local 7-Eleven. More than anything, Meri wants to hop in her VW Bug and head somewhere exciting, like New York or L.A. or any city where going to the theater doesn't only mean the movies. Everything is so scripted heredon't have too much fun, date this guy because he's older and popular, stay put because that's what everyone else does.But when her senior year should be all boys, SAT prep, and prom drama, Meri feels more and more distance between herself and the people she loves. Her grandma dies, her brother gets hurt, and even her best friend checks out to spend more time with some guy. As she struggles with family, grief, friends, and hormones, Meri must decide if she really is ready for the world beyond her backyard.Meagan Macvie's debut novel, The Ocean in My Ears, raises questions of love, purpose, and the power to choose your own future even when your future's the thing that scares you the most.

Rezensionen

Meri is complex. Heading into her senior year of high school, she’s desperate to leave her tiny Alaska town (a town known for two things—salmon fishing and having the highest per capita teen birthrate in the nation), but also terrified of leaving behind everything she knows. She has sex with a creepy older guy she’s dating but is also worried that it’s a sin and she might regret it (also, he’s a terrible human being but she hangs out with him for waaaaay too long). She doesn’t reveal anything about her life to her distant (both emotionally and physically) parents but longs for someone to do some parenting and for them to maybe understand her or even just see her. She has big dreams and big doubts. She’s been raised in a religious setting, having gone to Christian school until junior high. Her mother, and the church, repeatedly drive home the point that sex outside of marriage is a sin. It’s terrible, awful, you will go to hell, you will get diseases, you will get pregnant. Meri hears all of this but still wants to make her own choices, come to her own conclusions. It’s never easy stumbling your way through adolescence (the only way through is by stumbling, I think), but Meri is having a particularly hard time senior year. Her dad is either always off working in the oil fields or at home ordering her around, her grandma is dying (and her mom is gone for much of the book in Idaho tending to Meri’s grandma), her best friend has ditched her for a boy, and she likes Joaquin, a nice dude who she worries her parents won’t approve of, but instead dates jerky oaf Brett. She’s trying to figure out what she wants in life, but that’s hard to do in her tiny, isolated town with the constant talk of judging, sinning, and Satan.

Set in 1990, this look at a small town girl feeling trapped, frustrated, and ready to explore bigger horizons will appeal to fans of Carrie Mesrobian’s Just a Girl and other realistic YA where the main plot is the day-to-day existence of a teenager just trying to figure it all out.

—Amanda MacGregor, Teen Librarian Toolbox

Set in the early 1990s, Macvie’s debut novel follows 17-year-old Meri Miller during her last year of high school in (very) small-town Soldotna, Alaska, yet the year turns out to be anything but uneventful. As she seeks a way to leave Alaska for college, she navigates her first sexual encounter, the loss of her grandmother, a friend who drifts away, and the stifling rules of her religious parents. The novel is interspersed with pages from Meri’s diary, as well as letters she exchanges with friends and family, demonstrating Meri’s careful work toward becoming a writer. The writing is raw and occasionally verges on melodramatic in its true-to-life capturing of an adolescent voice, as when Meri’s will clashes with her mother’s (“I want to tell Joquin the truth about dating Brett and what happened, but I don’t want to wreck what I have now with him”). As Meri learns to trust her gut instincts in a variety of situations, Macvie movingly explores the ever-shifting highs and lows of adolescence. Ages 14–up.—Publisher's Weekly, November 2017

Merideth “Meri” Miller’s future is a black hole, but the summer before senior year stretches before her, and her life is changing faster than she can keep up.

Meri’s white best friend, Charlie, spends all of her time with her new boyfriend; her grandmother is dying; her brother is in a serious accident; and she struggles with decisions: where to go to college and when to have sex for the first time. Her two-faced boyfriend, older white guy Brett, is all hands and runs hot and cold, but she ignores the red flags; at least he’s interested in her. The boy she wishes she were with, her longtime crush, the elusive Joaquin, who is Mexican, seems mildly interested, although he doesn’t act on his feelings. Meri is complex: her desire to leave her small hometown of Soldotna, Alaska, after graduation battles the 17-year-old white girl’s fear of leaving for the unknown. She questions everything and asks all the right questions; themes of life and death, ecstasy and grief, and loss and gain permeate the story. Her story eventually subverts the familiar heteronormative plotline, in which the girl gives up everything for the boy and allows herself to be defined by his feelings for her. Her candid first-person narrative is punctuated by journal entries, notes exchanged with her best friend, and letters between Meri and her grandmother. The 1990s setting is marked by tsunami-height hair, acid-wash denim, and multiple trips to see Pretty Woman.

An unforgettable journey to adulthood. (Historical fiction. 15-adult)
—Kirkus

A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl has the potential to be incredibly cliche—but when you place it in Alaska, and add in dealing with the death of a beloved grandmother and family stress, finding your way as a teen becomes real. The cover is gorgeous, the writing is sharp and incisive, and the slightly irreverent tone makes this book one I’m really excited about. Besides, it’s set in the 1990s, which makes me nostalgic for my own teenage years, and made it really fun to read. A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl has the potential to be incredibly cliche—but when you place it in Alaska, and add in dealing with the death of a beloved grandmother and family stress, finding your way as a teen becomes real. The cover is gorgeous, the writing is sharp and incisive, and the slightly irreverent tone makes this book one I’m really excited about. Besides, it’s set in the 1990s, which makes me nostalgic for my own teenage years, and made it really fun to read. —Jaime Herndon, BookRiot

A teenager yearns to escape her mundane life and sleepy hometown in Alaska for the excitement that surely awaits her in a bigger city or a college town in the lower forty-eight states in this debut young-adult novel by Pacific Northwest author Meagan Macvie.

Meri Miller feels trapped by the same people and their predictable routines she has known her whole life, and she is growing tired of her own predictable schedule of eating junk food with her best friend at the 7-Eleven, soggy fries and ice cream at the Dairy Queen or sitting through another church sermon. As she begins her senior year of high school, she begins trying new things like going to parties, making out with older boys and dip-netting for salmon.

Graduation can’t come soon enough for a teen who’s ready to be an adult, but the harder Meri tries to plan her escape from the place she’s known her whole life, the troubles of adulthood, family and responsibility start to force their way into her life and threaten to derail her plans. Her grandmother gets sick, her brother gets hurt and her best friend is never around when she needs her. There are times when she wants to scream at the top of her lungs, but screaming doesn’t seem to solve the problems of adolescence.

Macvie writes in a revealing, personal manner that alternates between biting journal entries, heartfelt letters to family members and a thoughtful introspection that challenges her own dissatisfaction. Many times I felt as though I was still a high school freshman, reading my big sister’s diary—simultaneously embarrassed and intrigued to read what happens next.

Teenagers tend to practice adult-ish behaviors around each other to prove they are mature, like getting drunk, cursing insults and getting into jealous fights, but once we become adults we come to understand these childish behaviors are marks of grown-up bodies with underdeveloped minds. Real adulthood is racked by the burdens of compromise and responsibility, and by the end of Macvie’s “The Ocean in My Ears,” we begin to see Meri turn toward the path of mental and emotional maturity as her character comes of age in a world that has yet to discover the Internet or social media.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.11.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 140 x 140 mm
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Sammeln / Sammlerkataloge
• Schlagworte: 7-eleven • Abuse • abusive relationships • Alaska • Alcohol • anchorage • battles with cancer • Beach • cabin fever • Cancer • Charity • Christianity • Church • Classism • College • Coming-of-age • Coming of Age • Coping • Dairy Queen • Dating • deflowering • Dreams • drinking games • Exploring • facing diversity • feeling left out • Feeling lost • fornication • Friendship • Graduation • Grandma • Grief • Growing Up • Guilt • High School • homesick • Idaho • Innocence • Interracial • Interracial Relationships • Iowa • Journal • Leaving home • losing virginity • Loss • Mexican immigrants • moving • Outsider • partying • Peer Pressure • popularity • Poverty • Pregnancy • pregnancy scare • Rebellion • regret • Religion • religious trauma • salmon fishing • scare • Self-discovery • Sex • sexual harassment • Small Town • snowmobile accident • Soldotna • swimming • teenage dreams • Teenagers • teenage trauma • Teen Dreams • teen emotions • teen life • teen pregnancy • Teen Romance • Teens • therapy • underage drinking games • University • virginity • VW bug • watercolor
• ISBN-10: 1-932010-95-5 / 1932010955
• ISBN-13: 978-1-932010-95-4 / 9781932010954