Available:*
Library | Audience | Home Location | Material Type | Shelf Number | Status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Central | Teen/Young Adult | Open Stacks Fiction | Open Stacks Teen Book | LANE | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Anooshka Stargirl sometimes sees her life as a movie. But she can't escape the realities. At home there's a depressed mother who often won't emerge from bed. And a dad who's not in the picture. There are two best friends but a stifling pack of aspiring glamour girls. Fortunately there's Zoetrope Zallulah Moon, modish older sister extraordinaire, living a bus ride away in New York City.
Visiting Moon one summer weekend when the heat won't relent, Anooshka hears rock singer Orpheus's music. She's immediately entranced by his sound. His lyrics seem to echo her mood and light a spark in her core. After meeting the shy, approachable Orpheus by chance, Anooshka can't shake him from her head. And his Internet diaries keep signaling that they share a magnetic synchronicity. Soon Orpheus expresses an interest in her, and like the Greek mythological heroine Eurydice, Anooshka descends deep into a mesmerizing underworld -- until she reaches a place where fantasies topple and the unspoken finally makes itself heard.
Dakota Lane's tantalizing, allegorical tale follows a teen's obsession as it transforms into empowering self-discovery.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
As in Lane's debut, Johnny Voodoo, a 16-year-old with a volatile parent once again falls for a charismatic Mr. Wrong. Readers will be drawn in by the brash, hip heroine, as well as by Lane's depiction of the rarefied Bohemias of downtown Manhattan and Woodstock, N.Y., as enticingly portrayed as the bayou was in her first novel. Shortly after Anooshka's 16th birthday, she and her older sister, ZZ Moon, spend the day at Brighton Beach, where they have a chance encounter with up-and-coming musician Orpheus. Anooshka becomes fascinated with Orpheus, pondering his lyrics and reading his online diary. Anooshka believes that she and Orpheus have a mysterious connection, and when she visits his nightspot, Constellation, he gives her backstage passes to his next gig. After one giddily gorgeous encounter, Orpheus leaves on tour-and steps out of Anooshka's life. A period of despair ensues, ending only when-in an instance of overly tidy plotting that seems out of place in this lush and looping tale-Anooshka sees the parallels between the behavior of her lover and her absent father. Each chapter begins with a fragment of an Orpheus lyric, authentically annotated ("Japan import," "U.K. version," etc.), and black-and-white photographs apparently taken by Anooshka are sprinkled throughout. Drawn in by these hip accoutrements, teens will likely stay to enjoy Anooshka's tale, one that is instantly recognizable to just about anyone who has ever experienced the highs and lows of an obsessive crush. Ages 14-up. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
When Anooshka serendipitously meets rock star Orpheus, she develops an innocent crush. But as the charming and mysterious Orpheus fans the flames of Anooshka's infatuation, her (consummated) crush blooms into an obsession. The confessional, diarylike narration--interspersed with photos and Orpheus's online journal entries--effectively captures the emotional roller coaster of teenage love and heartbreak. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 9-12. Lane's first novel, Johnny Voodoo 0 (1996), was notable for its eerie melancholy and clear, tender narrative. Her newest title takes a fascinating premise and develops it with even more highly crafted prose. What teenager has not felt that the lyrics of a favorite rock singer's song speak directly to him or her. After Anooshka Stargirl hears an Orpheus CD, she is entranced. She spends hours in chat rooms devoted to the singer and follows his online diary, marveling at how their thoughts, interests, and wishes intersect. Unlike most teens who develop a crush on a musician, Anooshka actually meets Orpheus and ends up in a relationship of sorts. Lane incorporates black-and-white photographs (Anooshka is a photographer), song lyrics, Internet postings, and screenplay excerpts to give the reader a kaleidoscoic view of Anooshka's experience. Fascinating, fully developed characters abound, from the enigmatic Orpheus to Anooshka's mentally ill and sometimes abusive mother. Although the heavily counterculture setting (Woodstock) may limit the audience, the appealing premise and experimental, crystalline prose will draw and hold readers. --Debbie Carton Copyright 2005 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-This lyrical, angst-filled story of a 16-year-old girl's obsession with a musician will appeal to teens looking for an edgy love story. Anooshka Stargirl lives in a small New York town with her mentally unstable mother; her father left long ago, and her beloved older sister, ZZ Moon, lives in New York City. Moon introduces her to the music of a 21-year-old singer called Orpheus, and Anooshka feels an instant sense of connection. In one of the novel's several too-good-to-be-true coincidences, she immediately stumbles upon a photo shoot during which she meets Orpheus and gets his autograph. Soon she is consumed by the performer's lyrics and spends hours reading the journal entries on his Web site. She seeks him out in person and convinces herself that their developing relationship is special. Anooshka believes she is more than a mere groupie to him, and that they are meant to be together. Her obsession takes her deeper and deeper into Orpheus's world, where she also discovers more about herself and the reasons for her fixation. Though the few sex scenes are not graphic, drug and alcohol use and some rough language make the novel more suitable for older teens. Sensitive readers will identify with Anooshka's intense emotions and enjoy the highly descriptive, poetic language she uses to express her feelings and to depict her world.-Miranda Doyle, San Francisco Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
This myth-linked reality tale in incisive prose has a glittering Weetzie Bat sensibility. Sixteen-year-old Anooshka lives with her unstable mother in upstate New York but frequently visits her exotic, beloved older sister in Manhattan. Falling hard for a rock star named Orpheus whom she meets one manic day, Anooshka pores over his daily online journals and senses a cosmic connection between them. She pursues him to his hip restaurant and they hook up, after he declares seductively that they won't. However, Orpheus is a player and he drops her afterwards, sending Anooshka spinning downwards. Archetypal connections to the myth are mapped with intriguing complexity, placing Anooshka as both Eurydice and Orpheus. Leaning heavily on sister Moon, struggling hard with absent father, deceptive lover, dysfunctional Ma and the violent death of a passionately loved pet bird, Anooshka stumbles down into a subway underground but eventually emerges. Sharp and hypnotic. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Orpheus Obsession Chapter One Freedom Just an angel, in a green disguise -- from "All Faces," (c) ORPHEUS XTIIMUSIC (Japan import) Imagine having two good wings and never using them. The first time Zack escaped, he shot out the front door, a turquoise streak headed for the dark cluster of trees across the road. That night, I woke up worrying he was dead. I lifted my window and the black spring air was soft. I sensed him out there. So many tiny birds, in every bright color, were kept like toys in their cages, waiting for a chance to fly. If he made it back, he'd never be locked in his cage again. Zack was perched on the porch rail the next morning, preening, an animated spot against the green day. When he saw me, he froze and held me in his gaze. He still had something of the wild about him. And then he flew, making a neat landing on top of my head. I took him in. I saw you in the waves / you needed to be saved / maybe you were just trying / to make me feel so brave -- from "Don't Look Now," (c) ORPHEUS XTIIMUSIC It's an old red Honda with a few things wrong, like Ms. ZZ Moon cannot roll her window down on the morning after my birthday, the hottest day in New York in twelve years. The broiled fumes are floating in through all the other windows and too bad for everyone else -- sealed within their icy cars, oblivious to the demented beauty of real heat. We're headed to Brighton Beach. Moon's Orpheus CD is cranked up. Not loud enough -- we really have to blast it to wake up those people behind their windows. Life is so fragile, but there are days when you discover you've climbed into your own heart and the narrow course of your veins becomes a water park joyride, flooded with a steady chemical drip from some gland in the brain, the trickle adding up to a waterfall of joy, and you just fly down that intense slide even in the presence of death and all the other drab prospects. "You're manic today, aren't you?" says Moon, in her husky mermaid voice. "Yeah, maybe, so what," I say. "You think I should be on medication or something?" I turn up the music. "No," she shouts. "It's just that I can tell, that's all. I can see it in your eyes." And I can feel it as a kind of shiny heat inside. It gives me a jangly energy, a sense of strength. Like two cappuc-cinos with lotsa sugar. I don't mind it a bit. Ms. Z looks faintly like a space-age clown, with her high cheek color and her brows plucked into thin zigzags. She drives with her usual calm -- her long brown foot on the gas. She hates shoes and she hates bridges. But she loves clothes! She's always got some new creation on; today it's a piece of oddly sculptable, glimmering fabric, cut that morning with a pair of scissors, wrapped around her body like a piece of origami and tied with a coarse piece of rope. That damn cutie pie. She gives off a certain delicious smell -- licorice and basil, heightened in this heat. i love to blast music out into the world. Everything is festive that way. Ma hates it, says it's tacky. When I'm back home with her, driving around our boring country roads, she forces me to keep the windows up and the stereo low. Only five or six hundred more bucks and I'll drive my own car away. Freedom, I can feel it beating through my blood already, I can feel that day in my heart like a small sun. I can see the shooting stars in the sky and the bright yellow birds flying and the gorge guys in my car on that sweet sweet day, in my own swift-flying freedom mobile when I rocket my own songs into the world. People will snap their heads around, beaming at me and nodding in agreement with who I am. Maybe they already are, pulled in by our magnetism, mesmerized by Orpheus, with his rich, slow guitar and tribal drumming and that beautiful, echoey voice. I'm starting to like this guy. Moon always finds the best new music. Traffic's thick but still moving, and people will be looking our way any second now. Moon and me are like magnets. But no, the shorthaired guys in their sport-mobiles keep their eyes on the road, with their hands resting on the knees of their blond girlfriends. Their windows are plastered with college stickers: cortland. suny new paltz. binghamton. There are families and families who won't glance our way, troops of them in SUVs. We're the only ones existing in the raw element of the heat, a heat so bad it's either prehistoric or slyly futuristic. No one else on the bridge is experiencing our silver-heated reality; they're moving along, all foolish and bland within their simulated environments, oblivious behind their closed windows, not even the flick of an eye toward the one coolest girl on earth -- ZZ Moon -- and her sixteen-year-old cohort Anooshka Star. No recognition of my lime green heart sunglasses, served up my post-birthday morning in a glass of hand-squeezed lemonade by my sister, walking bent with a headache hangover. Yes, I'm racing a little, but people take drugs to feel like this. Why does everything have to be a malady? I don't mind when my mind is like a pinball, jumping from thought to thought, not when all the thoughts make me happy. Time-out for nostalgia. "Hey Moon," I say, "remember those fat ladies on the beach with drawn-on eyebrows and coral mouth gashes and the most festive rubbery 3-D bathing caps with squiggly spikes and flowers and nubbles growing out of their heads?" Moon turns down the music a notch, looks at me and laughs. "Yeah," she says. She's one of those drivers who use just two fingers to drive. I want to be one of those. "And Moon, remember their matching bathing outfits and flowery thong shoes in electric citrus colors?" "Yeah, you thought they were drag queens," says Moon. She'd swiftly corrected me: "Idiot -- they're transvestites!" The Orpheus Obsession . Copyright © by Dakota Lane. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Orpheus Obsession by Dakota Lane All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
01 Freedom | p. 1 |
02 Ecstatic Beach Trip | p. 2 |
03 Magnetic Path | p. 15 |
04 Hungry Ghost | p. 21 |
05 Lola Planet and the Albatross | p. 25 |
06 Like Morphine | p. 31 |
07 Zing! | p. 43 |
08 Scarlett at the Party | p. 49 |
09 Chow Chow | p. 69 |
10 My Timing Sucks | p. 72 |
11 Psycho Ma | p. 77 |
12 Constellation | p. 96 |
13 Orpheus | p. 99 |
14 He Locks Us In | p. 113 |
15 Why We're Out Here | p. 123 |
16 Zen Addict | p. 124 |
17 On Tour | p. 137 |
18 Looking for My Boy | p. 143 |
19 Oh Yeah, Trees, a Nude, How Nice | p. 153 |
20 Darling Strangers | p. 161 |
21 We | p. 187 |
22 My One and Only | p. 208 |
23 Love Is Chemical | p. 216 |
24 Honey Just Kill Me | p. 237 |
25 The Invisible Ones | p. 253 |
26 Hollywood Ending | p. 263 |
27 Bye-Bye Bug | p. 266 |