Rufi Thorpe

This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two women.

Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes &shy;every episode with smart, almost cosmic insights, tough talk, elegiac moments of love, dumb wonder, and, of course, further tragic events.

Her depiction of female friendship is engaging and sharply observed . . . Seldom has Schadenfreude been more appetisingly packaged.

Rufi Thorpe's open-hearted, open-eyed debut tells the engrossing story of a long friendship between two complex women and investigates the unpredictable, often baffling ways that luck shapes all of our lives. Generous, soulful, and tough.

Maggie Shipstead, bestselling author of SEATING ARRANGEMENTS

The Girls from Corona del Mar is a slim book that leaves a deep impression. Mia and Lorrie Ann are vivid and fully formed, and their stories provoke strong emotions that linger like lived memory. Thorpe is a gifted writer who depicts friendship with affection and brutality, rendering all its love and heartbreak in painstaking strokes.

It’s hard to believe [this] is Rufi Thorpe’s first novel — she writes like someone who has been through the wringer, like writers of the past who wrote because they needed to, because they had a problem with the way life was and had to tell someone. The Girls from Corona del Mar belongs in a different era, like something that could have been written during the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

The Girls from Corona del Mar’s raw, lyrical tone resonates—a gratifyingly honest dispatch from the battle lines of young womanhood.

Rufi Thorpe had me at the first line in her funny, sad, delightful debut novel, The Girls from Corona del Mar. A story about friendship, love, loss, and the sheer unexpectedness of life. Reading this book was like getting to know old friends; I was sorry when I turned the last page.

Anton DiSclafani, of THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS

The Girls from Corona del Mar is one of those rare books that breaks down the wall between reality and fiction; the entire time I read this book I ached as if it were my own best friend whose life was unraveling before me. Day and night I thought of her—I still think of her! Rufi Thorpe is a brilliant writer and this is a beautiful first book.

Vanessa Diffenbaugh, author of THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS

The Girls from Corona del Mar is unflinchingly realistic in its portrayal of life's twists and turns. Yet it's also full of heart. As Thorpe chronicles a complicated friendship across decades, continents and reversals in fortune, she brings to life two unforgettable characters.

J. Courtney Sullivan, author of MAINE and THE ENGAGEMENTS

What’s most impressive is its incredible vitality, its searing intensity. Turn off your phone, close the blinds, and let it take you.

Ann Packer, author of THE DIVE FROM CLAUSEN’S PIER

It’s a superbly written novel, with a natural almost conversational tone that makes for an easy read despite the often hard-hitting subject matter … I simply couldn’t put it down. There’s a magnetic and moving quality to Thorpe’s writing that had me hooked from start to end. An absorbing story of female friendship in all its ugliness and beauty.

[A] gripping debut novel … Not just a coming-of-age novel, this refreshingly honest book explores the myth of the perfect friendship and what it really means to be a loyal friend.

Mia, the extremely intelligent narrator, will make you think about friendship, luck, and the way we see the lives of others though our own eyes. I loved it.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2014 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 
 
A fiercely beautiful novel about friendship and the ties that bind us. 
 
Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends: hard-hearted Mia and untouchably beautiful, kind Lorrie Ann. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, and younger brothers she loves but can't quite be good to, Lorrie Ann is luminous, surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend's life. Until a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall apart further – and there is nothing Mia can do to help. And as good, kind, brave Lorrie Ann stops being so good, Mia begins to question just who this woman is and what that question means about them both. A staggeringly arresting, honest novel of love, motherhood, loyalty, and the myth of the perfect friendship that moves us to ask ourselves just how well we know those we love, what we owe our children, and who we are without our friends.

Rufi Thorpe

Praise for The Girls from Corona del Mar

This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two wo ...

Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two wo ...

Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two wo ...

Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

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Praise for The Girls from Corona del Mar

This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two wo ...

Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes ­every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two wo ...

Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes ­every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two wo ...

Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes ­every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...

The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes every episode with smart, almost cosmic insight ...