The First Time She Drowned

by Kerry Kletter

Overview

The beautiful struggle of a girl desperate for the one relationship that has caused her the most pain

Cassie O'Malley has spent the past two and a half years in a mental institution—dumped there by her mother, against her will. Now, at 18, Cassie emancipates herself, determined to start over. She attends college, forms new friendships, and even attempts to start fresh with her mother. But before long, their unhealthy relationship threatens to pull Cassie under once again. As Cassie struggles to reclaim her life, childhood memories persist and confuse, and Cassie must consider whose version of history is real, and more important, whose life she must save.

A bold, literary story about the fragile complexities of mothers and daughters and learning to love oneself, The First Time She Drowned reminds us that we must dive deep into our pasts if we are ever to move forward.

Praise for The First Time She Drowned:

"Lyrical, emotional...resonant." —Entertainment Weekly, MUST LIST

"Beautiful and passionate . . . [Kletter is] a writer of great distinction and infinite promise." —Pat Conroy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and South of Broad

"[A] lovely and haunting keep-you-up-all-night heart-wrencher that is both beautiful and raw, painful and uplifting. It’s utterly amazing. An incredible read." —Jennifer Niven, New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places

"Sentence by sentence . . . one of the most lyrical novels I’ve ever read. Haunting and exquisite." —Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything

"The First Time She Drowned is an exquisite and masterful dive, a brave exploration into the complexities of family, and the saving grace of friendship. Kletter’s writing is hypnotic, her characters alive, her story tragic, beautiful, hopeful. Simply put, this book is stunning." —David Arnold, critically acclaimed author of Mosquitoland

"[A] beautiful, gut-wrenching ache of a story. If you are at all interested in books, this is required reading." —Becky Albertalli, author of the Morris Award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

"The best writers are able to tell the most difficult stories with the most empathy, and that’s just what Kletter does in this haunting debut. Complex, affirming, and beautifully written." —Stephanie Kuehn, author of the Morris Award-winning Charm & Strange

"Gorgeous, sumptuously lyrical, luminous…a feast for lovers of language. The First Time She Drowned singlehandedly shatters every argument that YA books aren't fit fare for adults." —Jeff Zentner, author of The Serpent King

* "[An] excellent debut novel....heart-wrenching....Readers who enjoy the suspense of unreliable narrators, as in Adele Griffin’s Loud Awake and Lost or Stephanie Kuehn’s Complicit, will appreciate this one." —Booklist *STARRED REVIEW*

"This heartfelt, lyrical debut will strike a chord with older teens who appreciate contemporary fiction." —Kirkus Reviews

"An absorbing read." —VOYA

"Kletter’s exploration of a dysfunctional family...is raw with emotion…a sophisticated read.” —School Library Journal

"Emotionally devastating...a complex novel that ultimately uplifts." —Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780698188938
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	585,496
Lexile:	830L (what's this?)
File size:	725 KB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kerry Kletter has had a lifelong passion for story. She holds a degree in literature and has an extensive background in theater, having appeared in film, television, and onstage. When not writing, Kerry can be found surfing, running, working with animals, or singing loudly in her car while stuck in LA traffic. A native of Ridgewood, New Jersey, Kerry now lives in Santa Monica, California, with her partner, screenwriter David Zorn. The First Time She Drowned is her debut novel. Follow her on Twitter @kkletter.

Read an Excerpt

PROLOGUE
 
My mother wore the sun like a hat. It followed her as we did, stopping when she stopped, moving when she moved. She carried her beauty with the naiveté of someone who was born to it and thus never understood its value or the poverty of ugliness.
 
As children, my older brother Matthew and I were drawn to her like tides, always reaching our arms up to her, pulled to her light. If she had shadows, I did not recognize them as such. I saw her only in her most perfect form and any suggestion of coldness or unkindness was merely a reflection of me. This was the unspoken agreement I had with her, suspiciously drawn up before I was old enough to understand its cost.
 
Until I was a teenager, my family lived on the poor side of a wealthy town in Pennsylvania. It was a washed-out looking neighborhood where the colors of the houses were tired and peeling from neglect. Still, we had a huge backyard that stretched wide and ripe with all things wonderful to children. On its left seam it was lined with blackberry bushes whose purple juices stained our fingers as we stuffed them into jars for jam. On the right and perched tenuously on a hill as if cresting a wave of green, sat an enormous yellow boat, so old and weathered it had undoubtedly crawled its way to the shores of our yard to die. The boat was as big as our house and about as seaworthy. When I once asked my mother why we bothered to keep it, she looked not at the boat but at my father who was tooling uselessly about its deck.
 
“It’s a fixer upper for sure,” she’d said. “But maybe there’s something we can salvage.” She didn’t sound very convincing.
 
If nothing else, the boat was the perfect venue for playing pirates. Every weekend, Matthew, who loved to wield his authority in being three years older, played the role of the good captain while I, in a flash of prescience, was relegated to the part of the doomed and hated buccaneer. He would order me to move here and there, serving as both actor and director of our little scenes, and I would follow his instructions dutifully because Matthew was always better at pretending than I was.
 
Meanwhile, my father cleaned and fussed with the old boat, muttering and sighing as if his repetitive efforts might someday induce its spirit back to life. My brother and I would race wildly around him, as heedless of his frustrated cursing—the background noise of our childhood—as he was to our presence. For it was not for him that we played and scrambled about, maybe not even always for ourselves, but for her, the one who wore the sun like a hat, who was the sun to us. Because she mattered more. And because I sensed on some subterranean level that she needed us to, sensed that if we did not play the role of happy children, she might break like the Atlantic upon us.
 
Yet, for all my efforts, there were moments when I would catch my mother looking at that broken boat with the strange and startled horror of the drowning. This frightened me, and always I looked to Matthew to see if he too noticed the seas rising behind my mother’s eyes. He did not. Or if he did, he did not acknowledge it. But I saw too much. And I was never as good at pretending as Matthew was.

Editorial Reviews

12/21/2015
Kletter’s emotionally devastating first novel portrays life under a domineering and narcissistic mother. Placed in a psychiatric hospital at age 15 by her family, Cassie O’Malley is terrified to leave her comfortable routine and friends when she signs herself out at 18 to begin college. Unable to cope with the expectations of college life, Cassie retreats further into herself, risking her chance for a fresh start until new friend Zoey and love interest Chris encourage her to socialize. When she begins seeing Liz, the school counselor, Cassie’s flashbacks point to a manipulative mother, absent father, and siblings caught in the middle of their mother’s battles for affection and control. Kletter frames wrenching moments between mother and daughter and troubling references to suicide with the murky outlines of Cassie’s childhood memories, suggesting how easily one’s life can spiral out of control when abuse is involved. When more disturbing memories surface, Cassie must decide whether to retreat into her mother’s destructive realm or embrace her friends and trust that she is lovable. A complex novel that ultimately uplifts. Ages 14–up. Agent: Catherine Drayton, Inkwell Management. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The First Time She Drowned:

"Lyrical, emotional...resonant." —Entertainment Weekly, MUST LIST

"Beautiful and passionate . . . [Kletter is] a writer of great distinction and infinite promise." —Pat Conroy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and South of Broad

"Kerry Kletter’s The First Time She Drowned is the kind of book I love best—a lovely and haunting keep-you-up-all-night heart-wrencher that is both beautiful and raw, painful and uplifting. It’s utterly amazing. An incredible read. Be warned though—you will want to read Cassie’s story, start to finish, in one sitting. And then you will want to race to put it in the hands (and hearts) of everyone you know and love." —Jennifer Niven, New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places

"Sentence by sentence . . . one of the most lyrical novels I’ve ever read. Haunting and exquisite." —Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything

"The First Time She Drowned is an exquisite and masterful dive, a brave exploration into the complexities of family, and the saving grace of friendship. Kletter’s writing is hypnotic, her characters alive, her story tragic, beautiful, hopeful. Simply put, this book is stunning." —David Arnold, critically acclaimed author of Mosquitoland and Kids of Appetite 

"[A] beautiful, gut-wrenching ache of a story. If you are at all interested in books, this is required reading." —Becky Albertalli, author of the Morris Award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

"The best writers are able to tell the most difficult stories with the most empathy, and that’s just what Kletter does in this haunting debut about a girl lost in the depths of her family’s secrets and shame. Complex, affirming, and beautifully written." —Stephanie Kuehn, author of the Morris Award-winning Charm & Strange

"Gorgeous, sumptuously lyrical, luminous…a feast for lovers of language. The First Time She Drowned singlehandedly shatters every argument that YA books aren't fit fare for adults." —Jeff Zentner, author of The Serpent King
 
* "[An] excellent debut novel....heart-wrenching....Readers who enjoy the suspense of unreliable narrators, as in Adele Griffin’s Loud Awake and Lost or Stephanie Kuehn’s Complicit, will appreciate this one." —Booklist, starred review

"This heartfelt, lyrical debut will strike a chord with older teens who appreciate contemporary fiction." —Kirkus Reviews

"An absorbing read...fans of realistic fiction will be drawn to this book." —VOYA

"Kletter’s exploration of a dysfunctional family through the eyes of a daughter is raw with emotion…a sophisticated read…lyrical.” —School Library Journal 

"A complex novel that ultimately uplifts." —Publishers Weekly 

“A stunning story of family and friendship" —BookRiot

"Raw and evocative" —Buzzfeed

Best of Lists
TEEN VOGUE listed as "One of the best books you need to know now."
BARNES & NOBLE Teen Blog lists it as "one of their most anticipated debuts of 2016" and as "one of the best books of the year so far."
PASTE MAGAZINE lists it as "one of their most anticipated debuts of 2016" and as "one of the best books of the year so far."
ALA BOOKLIST names it to their “Top 10 First Novels for Youth” list

From the Publisher

01/01/2016
Gr 9 Up—Cassie O'Malley is 18 and can finally (against medical advice) check herself out of the mental institution she was committed to by her parents. Having been admitted into her mother's alma mater, an anxious yet hopeful Cassie attends college. While there, she finds it difficult to make friends and go to class, because she lacks coping and social skills. As childhood memories bubble to the surface, Cassie begins to question her upbringing. Kletter's exploration of a dysfunctional family through the eyes of a daughter is raw with emotion. The storytelling moves forward in time with flashback scenes to fill in the character's backstory. The author expertly establishes the familial connections, but the development of new bonds in college moves jarringly fast, especially given the complexities of and attention paid to Cassie's relationships with her mother, brother, father, and other extended family members. This book could contain triggers for students who have experienced sexual abuse at the hands of a relative. It is a sophisticated read that—given more pages to develop in the collegiate setting—could easily be placed on new adult shelves. Great for fans of Stephanie Kuehn's Charm & Strange (St. Martin's, 2013). VERDICT Sophisticated readers who enjoy dark realistic fiction will be satisfied by this lyrical novel.—Stephanie DeVincentis, Downers Grove North High School, IL

School Library Journal

Jorjeana Marie masterfully narrates this story of mothers, daughters, and fractured relationships. After spending nearly three years in a mental institution against her will, Cassie O’Malley is not sure how to move forward with her life. Marie’s narration pulls the listener into Cassie’s frame of mind as she attempts to re-enter the world. Cassie spirals between self-reflection and defiance while confronting her unreliable memories and struggling to cope with her charming but toxic mother. Marie’s deliberately flat and distant tone throughout most of the audiobook perfectly suit Cassie’s internal thought process. This makes the moments when Cassie’s rage breaks through all the more heartbreaking and realistic. N.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2019 - AudioFile

Jorjeana Marie masterfully narrates this story of mothers, daughters, and fractured relationships. After spending nearly three years in a mental institution against her will, Cassie O’Malley is not sure how to move forward with her life. Marie’s narration pulls the listener into Cassie’s frame of mind as she attempts to re-enter the world. Cassie spirals between self-reflection and defiance while confronting her unreliable memories and struggling to cope with her charming but toxic mother. Marie’s deliberately flat and distant tone throughout most of the audiobook perfectly suit Cassie’s internal thought process. This makes the moments when Cassie’s rage breaks through all the more heartbreaking and realistic. N.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2019 - AudioFile

2015-11-25
A teen who was wrongly confined to a psychiatric hospital for over two years struggles after she leaves and goes to college. Cassie's histrionic, image-conscious, abusive mother is the center of her daughter's universe in this poignant novel. As a young child growing up in a white family that "lived on the poor side of a wealthy town in Pennsylvania," Cassie does all she can to be seen in the same prized light as her older brother, but after a damaging experience with her mother's class-conscious aunt takes place, she eventually rebels, enraging her mother. The story opens as Cassie leaves the facility to which her mother connived to have her committed. At school she finds a true friend in her likable, goofy roommate, Zoey, but still returns repeatedly to the abrasive coping mechanisms that have allowed her to survive. Eventually, an unexpectedly helpful therapist is able to build a rapport with Cassie, and she remembers suppressed memories from her childhood. While there are realistic catalysts preceding this therapeutic revelation, including an intense make-out session with a boy she likes that ends in disaster, it seems to arrive a bit too conveniently, but the story's dramatic tension will keep readers engaged regardless. This heartfelt, lyrical debut will strike a chord with older teens who appreciate contemporary fiction. (Fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews