Lobsterland

by Susan Carlton

Overview

Tourists may think life on an island off the coast of Maine is quaint, but Charlotte knows better. She's tired of her island prison (it has a real name, but she calls it "Bleak"), and she's sure that a life in the great anywhere-else is heaps better than one that revolves around catching a ferry to the mainland. She even has the perfect solution: boarding school.

But who will take care of the siblets? Will clinically crazy Mom or organic-obsessed Dad be able to hold things together without her there? And is Charlotte ready to leave love-of-her-life Noah behind?

Susan Carlton has created a remarkably vivid, strong character in Charlotte; her intelligence, charm, and bitingly sarcastic wit are sure to win over anyone who has ever wanted more than Bleak.

"A realistic picture of a girl who yearns for independence but secretly fears letting go of the familiar." - Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466804371
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	09/04/2007
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	214 KB
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

SUSAN CARLTON, a magazine editor and writer, has spent her share of winters in Maine. Lobsterland is her first novel.

Susan Carlton was born in San Francisco, although (regrettably) she did not come of age in the hippie era. The author of the teen novel Lobsterland and a writer for magazines including Self, Elle, and Mademoiselle, she currently lives in Massachusetts with her husband. Her college-aged daughters know all the lyrics to “Baba O’Riley.”

Editorial Reviews

Teens bored with their humdrum surroundings and on the hunt for something (or someplace) better will be drawn to this debut novel. It's the week before boarding school applications are due, and 16-year-old Charlotte must decide whether to stay on the island off the coast of Maine with her dysfunctional family (she shoulders the responsibility for her preschool-age siblings) or to broaden her horizons. Charlotte's stream-of-consciousness responses to the applications' essay questions reveal her desires, frustrations and fears. For example, "Who is your favorite literary character?" leads to a rant about how Charlotte's unstable mother named her three children after Charlotte's Web; how Charlotte's best friend, who has just hooked up with Charlotte's lifelong boyfriend, ought to have been named Templeton, the rat; a complaint about her Scrabble-obsessed dad who has "shtupped" the preschool teacher; and a comparison of herself with Charlotte the spider ("love words" and "not instantly likeable" are traits they share). Charlotte is right about not being instantly likeable: as people keep telling her, she's condescending and snarky, and she hurts her boyfriend by hiding from him her thoughts about boarding school. Although her diatribes often sound arch or overly clever, they evoke a realistic picture of a girl who yearns for independence but secretly fears letting go of the familiar. The rest of the characters seem somewhat two-dimensional, but readers might be too consumed with Charlotte's ongoing drama-that is, their own drama writ very large-to mind. Ages 14-up. (Sept.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up
Charlotte, 16, lives off the coast of Maine on an island she calls Bleak. She can't wait to leave. In fact, she's secretly filling out boarding school applications for places far away (well, hundreds of miles, at least). In the meantime, her life jumps from drama to drama as her heavily medicated mother shares information about a long-ago abortion; her boyfriend seems to be spending a lot of time with her best friend; and her dad, obsessively addicted to online Scrabble, may be wanted by the FBI and is likely having an affair. Charlotte's rushed narrative is filled with unusual slang and a plethora of parenthetical comments. The choppy writing style is repeatedly disrupted by random observations, science facts, and other bits of arbitrary knowledge that only occasionally relate to the surrounding text. There are vague references to past people and events that won't be familiar to today's teens. And readers who do last until the end will be disappointed as the author tries to wrap everything up too neatly and easily-yet still leaves many questions unanswered.
—Heather E. MillerCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

A day in 16-year-old Charlotte's life on Bleak, an island of the coast of Maine, contains more chaos than a season of your average TV drama. With her mother both physically and mentally unavailable and her father more interested in his laptop than his kids, it's up to Charlotte to shuttle siblings Eb and Fern to day care and keep them entertained and fed. On top of her familial responsibilities, she maintains the top GPA in her class and makes time for her boyfriend Noah. In the week leading up to the winter solstice, obnoxious, literate Charlotte races to finish her boarding-school applications, fights with her best friend and questions the viability of her relationship with Noah. Additionally, her mother deserts the family, and her father may be wanted by the FBI. Carlton grasps at intelligence, wit and pathos but fails to reach any of them. Charlotte vacillates between sounding like an embittered hipster and a ten-year-old, and her speech often alienates the reader. Between Charlotte's delirious thought patterns, her endless attempts at wordplay and some of the unsexiest make-out scenes in teen literature, it is unlikely that readers will develop an attachment to anyone in this story. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews