{"product_id":"justine-isbn-9781951142339","title":"Justine","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA LitHub and Largehearted Boy Best Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eA LGBTQ Book That Will Change The Literary Landscape in 2021 —\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eA Vulture Best Short Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Piercing. It shook me, and it made me see.”—Victor LaValle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eSummer 1999. Long Island, New York. Bored, restless, and lonely, Ali never expected her life would change as dramatically as it did the day she walked into the local Stop \u0026amp; Shop. But she’s never met anyone like Justine, the store’s cashier. Justine is so tall and thin she looks almost two-dimensional, and there’s a dazzling mischief in her wide smile. “Her smile lit me up and exposed me all at once,” Ali admits. “Justine was the light shining on me and the dark shadow it cast, and I wanted to stand there forever in the relief of that contrast.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAli applies for a job on the spot, securing a place for herself in Justine’s glittering vicinity. As Justine takes Ali under her wing, Ali learns how best to bag groceries, what foods to eat (and not to eat), how to shoplift, who to admire, and who she can become outside of her cold home, where her inattentive grandmother hardly notices the changes in her. Ali becomes more and more fixated on Justine, reshaping herself in her new idol’s image, leading to a series of events that spiral from superficial to seismic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e, Forsyth Harmon’s illustrated debut, is an intimate and unflinching portrait of American girlhood at the edge of adulthood—one in which obsession hastens heartbreak.This terrifyingly relatable illustrated novel is a portrait of teenage infatuation between girls in 1990s Long Island, when heroin chic ruled. This is captured with unsparing prose and evocative black and white illustrations by the author. . . . Expect a lot of the kind of unacceptable violence teen girls learn to accept, and a lot of Mariah Carey, Tamagotchi, and Smirnoff.—Glamour, Best Books of March\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e demands your attention. The slim novel is populated with line drawings that require you to look. The image and the text vibrate together and apart, requiring the reader to find the connections, to excavate hard-earned truths.\n—The Believer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCrackling with the swift and satisfying fizz of Pop Rocks and Diet Coke, Harmon's first novel. . . . acutely captures that time in one's life when imitation feels like the sincerest form of freedom.—O, The Oprah Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is a beautifully illustrated and unique text—both supplied by Harmon—that explores the tender, excruciating and exhilarating experiences of girlhood, love, obsession and coming of age.—Ms. Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA compact but powerful illustrated novel. . . . a bittersweet, nostalgic coming-of-age story.—BuzzFeed\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe perfect read for lovers of ‘90s zine culture and coming-of-age stories.—Huffpost Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA book that has the breezy intimacy of a ’90s zine, with narration that is alternately withholding and searing—and altogether haunting.—Guernica\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA short, unflinching book. I read it one morning over coffee and felt consistently shocked by it.—Bitch Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA quiet thrill ride of a novel you won’t want to miss.—Bustle, Most Anticipated Books of March\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA painfully and painstakingly accurate representation of growing up . . . caught between the wealth of neighborhoods you don’t live in and friends you don’t really have.—Full Stop\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePowerful. . . . Harmon’s minimalist drawings [open] up more paths to understanding than the text alone can provide.—Electric Literature\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA sharp, richly textured novel.—The Rumpus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarmon’s evocative prose and drawings put the reader right back into the tension of that age, flush with all those tricky feelings. \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e is an immersive experience that reminds the reader what it’s like to be a teenager—for better or for worse.\n—Chicago Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA nostalgic trip through the magazines, music, and end-of-the millennium pop culture provides the backdrop for a narrative focused on obsessions, latent desire, and growing up.—Shondaland\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e takes the reader through the heightened emotions of adolescence and the messy intensity of female friendships during a decidedly fragile time of life.\n—Isa, Politics \u0026amp; Prose (via BuzzFeed)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn uncommon and incomparable coming-of-age story punctuated with enchanting and evocative line drawings, \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e is a highly recommended debut novel.\n—Bookreporter\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExquisite.—Debutiful\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf you haven't already gotten your hands on a copy of \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e, get thee to your local bookseller stat.\n—Coveteur\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe author’s clean, thin-lined illustrations add period detail to the prose’s cool lyricism. . . . Harmon traces the nuances of a teenage female friendship’s fraught dynamics with clinical precision.—Publishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA propulsive depiction of what a summer in the New York suburbs felt like before iPhones and what a crush can drive someone to do. . . . A novel that captures the emotional intensity, confusion, and quickness of adolescence.—Kirkus Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrancesca Lia Block's \u003ci\u003eWeetzie Bat\u003c\/i\u003e meets Laurie Halse Anderson's \u003ci\u003eWintergirls\u003c\/i\u003e in this short illustrated novel set in the 1990s. . . . This novel is likely to appeal to older teens as well as adults.\n—School Library Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePacks a punch in its tale of teen angst. . . I would recommend \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e to any reader who appreciates writing that takes teen girls’ lives seriously.\n—Women's Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the strongest debut novels I have read in years, a propulsive examination of girlhood in the late '90s.\n—Largehearted Boy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA show-stopping debut.—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUrgent and exquisite.—Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDevastatingly attuned to the longing, loathing, and eroticism that can run between two teenage girls.—Hermione Hoby, author of Neon in Daylight\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ve known Forsyth Harmon by the luxurious, eerie lines of her illustrations for years, and what a joy to discover that her writing is just as rich as her drawings. \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e beautifully captures the ragged-edged complexities of female friendship and the raw force with which a teenage girl moves through the turbulence of her previously-quiet life. \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e functions like an illuminated manuscript, in which illustration can live independently yet brings wealths of new meaning to a text, weaving together a world that’s pulsingly alive.\n—Kristen Radtke, author of Imagine Wanting Only This\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNervy, exacting illustrations and effortless prose . . . with the clarity and mystery of a black opal.—Catherine Lacey, author of Pew\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBrilliant. . . . The mix of text and art is so inventive in pushing toward new ways of questioning what image and text can reveal about each other.—Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForsyth Harmon tells powerful stories in both word and image, the two working together to convey meaning and emotion in a way that’s deeply satisfying. As a writer, and an artist, her gifts are on full display here. \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e is unsettling, adoring, insightful, and even a little frightening. The best books carry insights that will shake you. That’s what happened to me in this piercing novel. It shook me, and it made me see.\n—Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike being in a crystalized, lucid dream.—Makenna Goodman, author of The Shame\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[An] innovative debut, which combines pictures and text to paint an evocative portrait of an intense teenage friendship blossoming and then blowing up over a few weeks in the summer of 1999.—Newsday\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA razor-sharp depiction of the ways this world can bend a body to its breaking point.—Paperback Paris\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForsyth Harmon stuns with her debut.—The Nerd Daily\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDeeply honest, and painfully relatable.—Arkansas International\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStunning. . . . By leaning into teenage experiences that feel unspoken yet universal, Justine illuminates the nuances and significance of them. They may be typical, but it’s okay to feel them deeply.—MayDay\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePunctuated by the spare and elegant line drawings (an attenuated ankle here, a stout can of Diet Coke there), Forsyth Harmon's \u003ci\u003eJustine\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel both universal (who didn't have an unhealthily intimate best-friendship in high school?) and also highly specific (if you also remember Bridget Hall's late-'90s Ralph Lauren ads, hello). Ali is in high school, unhappy at home, where she lives with her cat and her TV-loving grandmother, and pretty instantly infatuated with Justine, her beautiful, impossibly cool coworker at the Stop \u0026amp; Shop. Their friendship has the same fuzzy electric quality as doing whip-its—the high is only a little less fleeting. Harmon depicts this heady time of life with an exquisite tenderness, a clarity that can only come from distance, and a sensitivity to this most formative part of our lives, when both nothing and everything seem possible all at once.\n—Refinery29\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA tiny book of big feelings.—Autostraddle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally, a book about remembering your first serious crush that’s not about fulfilling any cishet tropes.—Literary Hub, 5 Books You May Have Missed in March\u003cb\u003eForsyth Harmon\u003c\/b\u003e is the illustrator of \u003ci\u003eThe Art of the Affair\u003c\/i\u003e by Catherine Lacey, and has collaborated with writers Alexander Chee, Hermione Hoby, Sanaë Lemoine, and Leslie Jamison. She is also the illustrator of the essay collection, \u003ci\u003eGirlhood\u003c\/i\u003e, by Melissa Febos. Forsyth’s work has been featured in \u003ci\u003eThe Believer\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTin House\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eVirginia Quarterly Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Awl\u003c\/i\u003e. She received an MFA from Columbia University and currently lives in New York.","brand":"Tin House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233292136677,"sku":"NP9781951142339","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781951142339.jpg?v=1767730603","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/justine-isbn-9781951142339","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}