My Absolute Darling - Occasion

Turtle Alveston is tough. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the Northern California coast. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous : Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might get close) and to her life with her father.
Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she were the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus : her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. With Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero—and in the process, becomes ours as well.
Shot through with striking language in a fierce natural setting, My Absolute Darling is an urgently told, profoundly moving read that marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.