{"product_id":"instant-love-isbn-9780307337832","title":"Instant Love","description":"“We are all walking around this city with our hearts sadly swimming in our chests, like dying fish on the surface of a still pond. It’s enough to make you give up entirely.” \u003cb\u003e—from \u003ci\u003eInstant Love\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut we don’t give up. We keep trying. We’re either too stupid to learn from our mistakes or we honestly believe that the next time will be different; it’s hard to say which. Driven by the mad hopefulness that is part of the human condition, we are constantly falling in and out of love with a slightly different version of the person who came before. Jami Attenberg chronicles those exact moments with heartbreaking realism in her powerful debut, \u003ci\u003eInstant Love\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTold through the eyes of three young women and their friends and lovers,\u003ci\u003e Instant Love\u003c\/i\u003e explores what it means to be in love, what it means to be lonely, and what it means to be both at the same time. Holly turns to computer dating to find love even as she thinks wistfully of a former boyfriend who loved her well and fed her ice cream. Maggie recounts the story of her one crazy summer to her disbelieving husband and feels the distance between them grow wider than the void across their king-sized bed. And Sarah Lee remembers the one who got away and the one she ran away from, all the while moving toward the one she can actually love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Holly, Maggie, and Sarah Lee move through the rituals of modern love, they have to decide who is worth taking a chance on in a world where things don’t fall into place easily, people are often difficult, and disappointment is the rule. Through their stories, Attenberg presents a rare, honest look at love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlso available as an eBook.“A funny but ultimately heartbreaking look at how our society’s warped mating rituals can ruin promising young women. This assured debut calls to mind the early work of Tom Perrotta and Denis Johnson, but also rings with echoes of Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro.” —Neal Pollack, author of \u003ci\u003eNever Mind the Pollacks\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An exhilarating ride into love’s weightless nights and soaring hopes. Jami Attenberg takes us into the hearts of lonely art students, twenty-four-year-old software millionaires, drifting academics, young divorce´es, and dreamy high school girls hanging out at the Taco Bell. These love songs will make you ache and laugh and never sorry you picked up this book.” —Martha Sherrill, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins of California\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jami Attenberg reveals sharp, scorched, and darkly funny truths about love (and its side effects) in this totally addictive book. Her cadences are quick, her observations dead-on, yet she matches every bitter nerve with sweet instances of hope. Terrific.” —Wendy McClure, author of \u003ci\u003eI’m Not the New Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Funny and strangely soothing. . . . Attenberg has manufactured a very hilarious but painfully real world—a mix of hopeful bright moments and daily drone. She knows that our epiphanies happen in lame restaurants, in front of a platter of Macho Nachos.” —Mike Albo, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Underminer \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Hornito\u003c\/i\u003eJami Attenberg’s work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eSalon\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNylon\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePrint\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePindeldyboz\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eTime Out New York\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at jamiattenberg.com.The Perfect Triangle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Holly is getting her makeup done by the burnout girl she befriended   at work. They're in the bathroom at the back of the pharmacy, and   Shelly's dusting one perfect pastel-colored triangle on each eyelid.   Same as hers. She's been staring at Shelly for two nights a week,   5:00-9:00 pm, most of senior year, and has fallen deeply in love with   her makeup.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Holly has tried to make the same perfect triangles herself at home,   usually with Seventeen magazine spread out next to her on the   bathroom counter. She looks at the photos and diagrams and memorizes   the quick tips, muttering directions under her breath as she stares   into the mirror, but it's no use. Her eyes end up looking more like   Picasso's than Madonna's. It turns out she's no good at blending in   the makeup. She's going to suck at blending in for the rest of her   life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Tonight she's going on a date, that's why all the makeupping. She's   going out with a boy named Christian who is nineteen and who likes   the Smiths and the Cure and New Order. Holly is seventeen and likes   New Order and Echo and the Bunnymen and Joy Division. She knows she   should like the Smiths, but Morrissey seems like such a whiny turd.   Holly has lied to Christian about this, because he worships   Morrissey. Morrissey changed his life forever, that's what Christian   says. He's a vegetarian now and everything. Meat is murder, he says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shelly likes Aerosmith and Judas Priest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That's how Holly and Christian met, because of music. They were both   wearing the same New Order T-shirt, the one with the Brotherhood   album cover (which is a classic, even though it is only a few years   old), when Christian came in the pharmacy to pick up his father's   heart medicine. No one else wears those shirts in her hometown. Holly   lives in a town so small she can barely breathe. That's the joke,   she's heard it said before: If you want to breathe, go to the next   town over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Coincidentally, that's where they sell New Order T-shirts, too, in   the next town over. At that little shitty record store in the   minimall, between the 7-Eleven and the dry cleaner's. That's where   they both got their shirts. They talked about that record store for   five minutes, how it was such a rip-off but it was the only place   around. A line built up behind him, and she thought he was going to   leave, but then he stepped to the side and waited, and her heart   fucking flung at her chest, hard and fast and repeatedly, because oh   my god, this guy is going to like me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No one ever likes her like that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Because of their age difference, Holly and Christian are keeping   their romance a secret. No one wants anyone getting arrested for   statutory anything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Plus the engine on his car is so loud she can hear him coming from a   block away, and she jokes about it with him, but she's not kidding,   that car is a piece of shit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And he has shaved the sides of his head and left the hair on top long   so that it spills over his narrow face in an awkward way and makes   him look vaguely like a celery stick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Also, there is the matter of Christian living in his father's   basement because he doesn't feel like getting a job while   halfheartedly taking community-college classes in accounting because   he doesn't feel like going away to college. He doesn't feel like   doing much of anything except riding around in his car and running   errands for his dad, talking about Morrissey, and drinking beer from   cans in paper sacks. Holly is two years younger than him, and already   she knows she is going to blow him away in life, though she's not   sure if she's allowed to feel that way yet, so she beats herself up   for being a big snob. She is no better than her girlfriends, who say   things like, \"Like I would date a guy who wasn't in National Honor   Society\" because all of her friends are smart-girl snobs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That's why she likes this burnout girl so much. Shelly thinks it's   normal to date a guy who goes to community college. Shelly thinks   it's OK to spend an hour putting on eye makeup. It doesn't matter to   Shelly if he smokes or drives a crappy car. He has a car, chica!   (Shelly likes to translate words into Spanish whenever possible. It's   the only class she isn't failing.) At least he has a car. At least   you have a boyfriend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shelly has a secret that isn't much of a secret at all. When she was   ten, a neighbor kidnapped her and kept her in his basement for ten   days. He was fat, with a belly like a pregnant woman's, and he had a   wandering eye. Holly remembers when it happened, because it was the   first time she was aware of something bad happening to another kid   her age. Sure, there had been divorced parents (like hers), skinned   knees and broken arms, and Holly even knew a girl whose dog had died   after getting hit by the FedEx truck. But no one she knew had got   kidnapped and--she was guessing, everyone was guessing, but no one   knew for sure except for the police and Shelly's parents--raped by   some psycho nutjob who got away with it for as long as he did because   he was a regular churchgoer, and no one ever suspects a man who is   one with God.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That's what Holly's mother said when they finally busted him. She   slapped down the newspaper on the kitchen table, three cups of coffee   into the morning, and yelled, \"Anyone could see the man was crazy!   Look at that eye! You wear one little crucifix around your neck and   your shit don't stink.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Holly's mother is a godless heathen. She says this proudly to her two   friends in town, who are also divorced and also mothers. They spend a   lot of time in the next town over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She has thin black hair and is tiny and focused, like a firecracker   right before it explodes. She is always suing Holly's father for more   child support. Every time he writes another book, she asks for more   money. Holly has a younger sister, Maggie, who has lots of medical   bills. Neurologists. Therapists. Pharmacists. \"Plus they are two   teenage girls, Bill,\" her mother would say into the phone. \"They eat,   they shop, they breathe.\" The expenses, her mother hisses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Holly's mother exhausts her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shelly moved away a few months after the trial. She went to live on   the other side of the state with her dad, who blamed her mom for what   happened. Her mother also blamed herself for what happened, because   she was at work, and not at home waiting for her child. And she   blamed herself for marrying her husband in the first place. She   married him because he was the first one who asked. What if no one   else asked? What if? Her life was just one big mistake leading up to   her child being kidnapped and molested. So Shelly left and her mother   began to drink, and she did this for a few years, she was very good   at it, until her boss at the salon told her to cut it out, quit   coming to work smelling like you've been making out with Bartles \u0026amp;   Jaymes all night long or you're fired. She got herself in a program,   went to a lot of meetings, made a lot of apologies, and tried to get   her daughter back. A mother should be with her daughter, don't you   think?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shelly always complains when her mom is \"twelve-stepping\" her again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Take her, said Shelly's dad. It's my turn for some fun. Shelly's dad   throws acid parties now. She sometimes visits him on the weekends and   smokes pot with his girlfriend who is only ten years older than her   and used to live in Korea and knows how to swear in ten different   languages. He's acting like it's the sixties again, that's what   Shelly says when she comes back after a visit. He's trying to turn   back the hands of time. El tiempo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They are taking turns, this family, with being fucked up. That's what   Holly thinks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shelly's been back in town for a year, and everyone knows exactly who   she is; no one has forgotten a thing. People don't forget things like   kidnap and rape and molestation and violation and major jail time in   a town so small no one can breathe. No one will touch Shelly. No one   wants to go near her, except for the other burnout girls. They   recognize her as the kind of girl who has a particular understanding   of extreme sorrows inflicted by a different kind of fate than applied   to the rest of the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It's funny, though, because Holly can see how easily Shelly could be   something else besides a burnout girl. All the rest of them have a   raw look, narrow and paranoid in the eyes, and they're too skinny   (except for the one who is too fat), and have bad skin and wear too   much makeup that they've probably shoplifted. Whenever Holly walks by   them when they are smoking in the school parking lot, they are always   laughing dark, bitter laughs, raw and scratchy and pained. They sound   as if they've stayed up late the night before, when she was in bed by   eleven, just as her mother asked her to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But with Shelly, Holly sees puffy soft cheeks, and pink sad lips, and   otherworldly gray eyes that are always drifting off toward the sky,   toward somewhere else besides the fluorescent peak of the pharmacy.   Shelly is soft feathered hair, a real natural blond, dirty blond   maybe, but blond nonetheless, and perfect pink-and-purple eyelids,   and tight black jeans and a form-fitting black button-down flannel   shirt that just hits the waist, and high-heeled black boots with a   strap and silver buckle around each ankle. Shelly is quiet until you   get to know her, and then she has something to say. Shelly has a   secret, that's what Holly thinks. When you look at her, you know she   has a little secret just bursting to get out of her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In other words, she's a real knockout.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    holly sits on the toilet seat while Shelly finishes her eyes, and   stares at the reflection of the bathroom in the mirror. There are so   many signs in this bathroom, reminders of how to be a normal person   when you're away from home: Wash your hands. Don't flush sanitary   napkins. Please put the seat down when you're done--yes, that means   you, Alan, Greg, Schneider, and Mario. (\"Please\" is underlined, and   someone has drawn a star next to it.) There is also a framed print of   a sketch of a rose over the toilet. A bottle of air-freshener spray   rests on the toilet tank. Lilies of the Valley. What valley?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shelly tells her to look up, and doses her lashes with mascara. Then   she asks if she's in love with Christian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So are you totally in love with him, Holly?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Christian? Christian who doesn't like to read anything but NME?   Christian who has things like \"Buy Jelly\" written on his hand?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Holly laughs as if to say, As if, and Shelly looks at her all soft   and puffy and sad, like, How can you not be in love? Don't you know   how lucky you are? And a little bit of: Then why have I spent the   last hour doing your makeup if you're not even in love?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So Holly says, No? Maybe?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Finally she lands on: Well, it's only been five weeks. Which should   have been her answer in the first place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shelly tells her to stop squirming or you'll fuck it all up. While   she leans over she sticks the round edge of her tongue out between   her lips and holds it there. Some of the pink eye shadow drifts down   from Holly's lid and her applicator onto Holly's chest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Sit still, she says. Do you want to look hot or not?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    holly hates makeup on principle. Makeup is what other girls wear,   girls who need to wear it in order to get attention, or to make   themselves feel better, or to feel like they fit in with everyone   else. These are girls who cannot carry their weight in the world   otherwise. But I am an exceptional person, this is what Holly tells   herself in between beating herself up for being such a snobby   smart-girl bitch. (She cannot help it if she is the smartest girl,   possibly the smartest person, in her AP biology class, and maybe even   AP chemistry, too.) She has other things to worry about besides   makeup.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her mother doesn't wear makeup. When Holly asked her once to show her   how to put some on, she said, \"Really?\" and Holly knew her mother   thought that that was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. Like, why   would you want to? Like, what is wrong with you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And the truth is, Holly looks better without it. Makeup makes her   look darker and older, like she has something to cover up when in   reality she has fine, rosy skin, bright eyes with dark lashes, and   plump red lips. She is bursting with youth. She doesn't realize it   now, but she will in ten years when she looks back at her high-school   graduation pictures. She is a ripe plum waiting to be plucked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But if she's going to have a friend who is a burnout girl, and she's   going to date a guy with no future who sometimes wears eyeliner on   their dates, if she's going to lead this secret, opposite-world life,   she might as well try wearing a little makeup.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    every time she goes out with Christian, she lets him do something new   to her body. She is conducting an experiment. She is her own science   project. Mix a hand with the space between the thighs, it feels this   way. Apply a tongue to a nipple, it feels that way. Oxygen and water   and heat equal steam.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This seems to be the main purpose of their dates, this getting to the   half-naked-on-the-black-leather-couch-in-his-father's-basement part   of it. The couch impresses her. It has a few cigarette burns on it,   but otherwise it's luxurious. All the furniture in Holly's house is   wicker or velour or some sort of flower-patterned fabric. The couch   totally works on her. All she wants to do is lie on that couch and   make out with Christian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They both have become better kissers in the last five weeks, although   he still likes to do this tongue-swordplay action that shethinks   requires too much effort for the end result. When she kisses his neck   instead, he says: Are you trying to seduce me?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Which is preposterous. She has no idea what she is doing. But she says yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And then he says: Are you turned on?","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299849556197,"sku":"NP9780307337832","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307337832.jpg?v=1767730091","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/instant-love-isbn-9780307337832","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}