A Room on Lorelei Street

by Mary E. Pearson Narrated by Natalie Ross

Overview

A room is not much. It is not arms holding you. Not a kiss on the forehead. Not a packed lunch or a remembered birthday. Just a room. But for seventeen-year-old Zoe, struggling to shed the suffocating responsibility of her alcoholic mother and the controlling guilt of her grandmother, a rented room on Lorelei Street is a fierce grab for control of her own future. Zoe rents her room from Opal Keats, an eccentric old lady who has a difficult past of her own, but who chooses to live in the possibility of the future. Zoe tries to find that same possibility in her own future, promising that she will never go crawling back. But with all odds against her, can a seventeen-year-old with a job slinging hash make it on her own? Zoe struggles with this worry and the guilt of abandoning her mother as she goes to lengths that even she never dreamed she would in order to keep the room on Lorelei Street.

Editorial Reviews

School Library Journal

Gr 10 Up-When Zoe's teacher mispronounces her name on the first day of class, the 17-year-old explodes. To teachers and administrators, she is just another rebellious teenager. Not even her friends know or understand the depth of her emotional stress. Caring for an alcoholic mother, dealing with an overbearing grandmother, going to school, and working to make ends meet all collide and Zoe finally walks out. She finds solace in a small rented room on Lorelei Street and discovers a new friend in Opal, her eccentric elderly landlord. Throughout the novel, Zoe struggles with her feelings for Mama, which swing from hatred to guilt to longing; thoughts about her father, whose accidental death may have been suicide; and her need for attention, which has resulted in numerous sexual relationships. Unable to make enough money at her waitressing job to pay the rent, Zoe finds that she will do anything-no matter how self-destructive-to keep her safe haven. For her, the rented room represents an escape from an impossible situation, a break from suffocating family bonds that gives her the impetus to start a new life. The third-person narration is at times lyrical, vividly expressing the teen's feelings and motivations. This book is a good read and the message--while powerful--is not overpowering.-Sharon Morrison, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Headstrong 17-year-old Zoe longs to escape the smothering helplessness of her alcoholic mother. After school, she works nights in a local diner to make ends meet, and then spends the rest of her night cleaning up whatever daily mess-physical, emotional or financial-her mom creates. But each night on her way home, she allows herself 15 minutes of solitary, peaceful diversion in the guise of an empty, warmly lit window on Lorelei Street-a window that symbolizes her desire for freedom and piece of mind. The symbol becomes reality when a rental sign appears in front of the house. Zoe scrounges to find both the rent money and courage to abandon her mother, and she moves into the room, only to discover that making it on her own in the adult world is much more complicated than she could have ever expected. Out of Zoe's troubled scrutiny, Pearson sophisticatedly crafts a quietly cramped, small-town Texas community. All literary elements-characters, setting, mis-en-scene-seamlessly and poetically coalesce into her ephemerally hot and cold teenage persona whose tough outer shell masks enough skeletons in the closet to eat her alive. (Fiction. YA)

From the Publisher

Pearson sophisticatedly crafts a quietly cramped, small-town Texas community. All literary elements . . . seamlessly and poetically coalesce.” —Kirkus Reviews

“You may not agree with her choices, but you'll think about them long after you finish her story. READ IT.” —Teen People

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169612226
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	03/20/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET (Chapter One)

It used to be a house.

You could almost have called it pretty.

She stares at chain-link threaded with weeds, a few of them blooming. Her vision blurs on white petals and regains focus on a patch of lawn the fence holds in—or what might have been a lawn once. She can't remember that it has ever been green but knows it once was more than the dusty stubble it is now. She thinks about the rough texture between her toes, running across it, barefoot, with the hot Texas sun pressing down from above and a cool, lazy sprinkler refreshing from below. She remembers a six-year-old girl whose laughter came easy. She remembers but wonders, Was it ever really that way?

No pretense is made of throwing out a sprinkler now. It is not a house anymore. She knows that. The only life is in the weeds that live in the protection of the chain-link.

She throws down her cigarette and mashes it on the sidewalk, kicking it over with a pile of a dozen others. She breathes out one last, smoke-filled breath and almost smiles. There is still a little pretense left. She slips a peppermint into her mouth and lifts the latch of the gate. It groans, low and heavy, whispering, Don't go in. Don't go in.

But she does.

A ROOM ON LORELEI STREET Copyright © 2005 by Mary E. Pearson.

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