Synopses & Reviews
When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it's on the condition that she reform her ways. But that's before the charismatic and beautiful Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is a young woman hell-bent on a trajectory of self-destruction, and she doesn't care who is taken down with her. No matter the transgression--a stolen credit card, a cocaine binge, an affair with a teacher, an accident that precipitates the end of Catherine's promising riding career--Catherine can neither resist Skye's spell nor stop her downward spiral.
De Gramont's chilling novel is a portrait of an adolescent girl so thoroughly seduced by a peer that she willingly follows her to ruin. Caught in a world that is both appealing and astonishing, these young women are sexual beings with the minds of teenagers: willful, selfish, daring, and cruel--all the while believing they're utterly indestructible.
Review
"When almost-good-girl Catherine Morrow, just 16, crosses paths at boarding school with the blithe, brilliant daughter of a senator, their friendship seems destined to soar, and it does -- but too close to the sun. Nina de Gramont has written a stunning story of youth at its zenith and the tragic allure of a reckless zest for life that masks something far darker. I inhaled this novel in one breath."--Jacquelyn Mitchard, author The Deep End of the Ocean
Review
"Gossip of the Starlings grabs hold of you and does not let go for a minute. The yearnings and conflicts of love and friendship are examined against a backdrop of privilege and the drug culture of the 1980s. I am not exaggerating when I say that I stayed up all night reading this book. Nina de Gramont shows us the conflicts that come with loyalty, the ease with which we choose right from wrong, and the moral consequences of both. Unflinching, wise, terrifying, and beautiful, this is a book that will resonate long after it ends."—Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle
Review
"The narrator is achingly sensitive and unique, but the story strikes universal themes: our false sense of immortality at the very moment we act most recklessly, our nostalgia for our own youthful intensity of perception and emotion. It's also about the attractive and deceptive nature of danger itself, and how sometimes the people we encounter in our lives who are at greatest risk are also those who make us feel most alive."
—Wendy Brenner, author of Phone Calls from the Dead
Review
"Memorable . . . When de Gramont focuses her gaze on her naïve, doomed muses, the book soars. . . . A transfixing confessional about the secret lives of dangerous girls."—Kirkus Kirkus Reviews
Review
"De Gramont skillfully sustains a tension that leads to an explosive ending while providing us with characters that go well beyond many recent examples of upper-crust East Coast teenage life. Think Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis with the wisdom of hindsight....A compelling coming-of-age novel....[Gossip of the Starlings] excels in its honest depiction of the interrelationships among teens and with their families and circumstances."—Library Journal
Review
"The kind of smart and riveting read that fans of a certain kind of campus drama--think Donna Tartt's
The Secret History -- will devour...There's romance, betrayal, a gorgeous scholarship boy and a spot-on rendering of the queasy regret you sometimes feel when friends from separate orbits meet. Grab this one and share it with your teenage daughter." --
People, four stars
Review
"It's a rare book that draws you into the tiny, idiosyncratic world of its characters so completely, and de Gramont's descriptions are often so vivid you'll want to give them a closer read...grade: A-."--
The Washington PostReview
"Sparkles with an intense exuberance . . . it trumps
Catcher in the Rye and
A Separate Peace...
Gossip of the Starlings will join that shelf reserved for literary classics." --
Providence Sunday Journal Review
"Nina de Gramont has written a stunning story of youth at its zenith and the tragic allure of a reckless zest for life that masks something far darker. I inhaled this novel in one breath." --Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of
The Deep End of the OceanSynopsis
"The book soars . . . A transfixing confessional about the secret lives of dangerous girls."
--Kirkus When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it's on the condition that she reform her ways. But that's before the beautiful and charismatic Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is in love with danger and the thrill of breaking rules, taking risks, and crossing boundaries, no matter the stakes. The problem is, the stakes keep getting higher, and Catherine can neither resist Skye nor stop her from taking down everyone around her.
De Gramont's chilling novel is a portrait of the seductions of adolescence in all their beauty and terror. Caught in this alluring world, the girls of Esther Percy are optimistic and willful, loving and selfish, daring and cruel--all the while believing they're utterly indestructible.
Synopsis
When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it's on the condition that she reform her ways. But that's before the beautiful and charismatic Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is in love with danger and the thrill of breaking rules, taking risks, and crossing boundaries, no matter the stakes. The problem is, the stakes keep getting higher, and Catherine can neither resist Skye nor stop her from taking down everyone around her.
De Gramont's chilling novel is a portrait of the seductions of adolescence in all their beauty and terror. Caught in this alluring world, the girls of Esther Percy are optimistic and willful, loving and selfish, daring and cruel--all the while believing they're utterly indestructible.
About the Author
Nina de Gramont is the author of the collection
Of Cats and Men, which was a Book Sense selection and won a Discovery Award from the New England Booksellers Association. Her fiction has appeared in
Seventeen, Nerve, the
Harvard Review, Post Road Magazine, and
Exquisite Corpse. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and daughter.