The Girls from Corona del Mar: A novel Audiobook

Quotes

• “A knockout…We can’t help but root for these memorable heroines.”

  — Elle

• “I love childhood BFF novels (hello, Judy Blume!). This one’s adult and enchanting.”

  — Glamour

• “Lorrie Ann and Mia are best friends defined by their differences: Lorrie Ann is beautiful, serene, a rule follower; Mia is fierce, with a recklessness that passes for bravado. Both end up pregnant before graduation, but it’s sweet Lorrie Ann whose life is haunted by ‘the vultures of bad luck.’ [The] girls’ raw, lyrical tone resonates—a gratifyingly honest dispatch from the battle lines of young womanhood.”

  — Entertainment Weekly

• “A ravishing, stay-up-all-night-reading kind of novel.

  — More

• “As Rufi Thorpe demonstrates so vividly in her debut The Girls from Corona del Mar, the one we grow up with is the one we love forever—even well after we’ve grown apart…Over nearly two decades, we watch Mia try to come to terms with her friend’s struggles and to understand why things didn’t go as planned…Because of Thorpe’s raw and intelligent voice, this book stays with you…You may not like either of these women all the time, but you’ll likely recognize them and find it hard to turn away.”

  — Amazon.com, editorial review

• “Thorpe’s story, though beautifully embellished with international settings and Sumerian legend, is a simple one about the dramas of long-term friendship, its importance and poignancy, its difficulties and disappointment…The Girls From Corona del Mar is a slim book that leaves a deep impression. Mia and Lorrie Ann are vivid and fully formed, and their stories provoke strong emotions that linger like lived memory. Thorpe is a gifted writer who depicts friendship with affection and brutality, rendering all its love and heartbreak in painstaking strokes.”

  — Los Angeles Times

• “It’s hard to believe that The Girls from Corona del Mar is Rufi Thorpe’s first novel—she writes like someone who has been through the wringer, like writers of the past who wrote because they needed to, because they had a problem with the way life was and had to tell someone. The Girls from Corona del Mar belongs in a different era, like something that could have been written during the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. It’s about two people who, despite the promises that life once held for them, continue on, for better and for worse, to try and capture a dream.”

  — Boston Herald

• “The divergent paths of two girls raised in a Southern California beach town plot the course for Thorpe’s affecting debut novel…Thorpe unflinchingly examines the psychological tug-of-war between the friends, and delves in to the pro-choice debate and issues relating to medical malpractice to give the personal narrative heft. The result is a nuanced portrait of two women who are sisters in everything but name.”

  — Publishers Weekly

• “This literary novel will leave readers questioning the myths and realities of complicated relationships.”

  — Booklist

• “Elegant yet intense…The Girls from Corona del Mar spans multiple births, deaths, continents, and love affairs as Mia does the difficult work of looking back on her friendship with Lorrie Ann…Thorpe writes descriptive and unhurried sentences, and the character of Lorrie Ann feels alternately vivid and hazy, lovable, and loathsome…Take the time to get to know The Girls from Corona del Mar and contemplate the beautiful and thorny—even agonizing—sides of friendship.”

  — BookPage