Edges
Written by Léna Roy
Narrated by Cynthia Holloway and Ryan Gesell
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Back in New York, nineteen-year-old Ava is struggling through her own transformation-from drunk to recovering alcoholic. How could she have gotten so out of control? Almost sixty days sober, she's not sure she can keep it up. But someone she meets at an AA meeting changes her mind, and a strange coincidence-or is it more than that?-brings Ava west to Moab as well.
Living on the edge, caught between the pain of the past and the possibilities of the future, Luke and Ava both discover that in this mysterious world, hope sometimes comes from the most unlikely places.
Léna Roy
Léna Roy published her first novel, Edges (FSG), in late 2010. She is the Regional Manager for Writopia Lab in Westchester and Connecticut, and her writing was featured in the essay collection for middle school kids and their teachers Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Essays to Devour: Your Favorite Authors Take on the Dreaded Essay Assignment. She lives in New York.
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Reviews for Edges
6 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Edges opens with seventeen-year-old Luke settling into a trailer outside the Moonflower Motel in Moab, Utah, his home since he fled New York City and his alcoholic father. He moved west alone and cobbled together a family headed by Clare and Jim, the Moonflower’s owners. The story shifts between Luke’s present, New York in the past when Frank and Luke cope with the death of Luke’s mother, and New York in the present when Jim and Clare’s daughter Ava, a shiny new college student, attends Alcoholics Anonymous and meets Frank. A journey of forgiveness and redemption brings the characters together, but the novel never feels contrived. I believed it was possible for lives to intertwine and become stronger together.I admired Léna’s unflinching portrayal of addiction. In college, a dear friend attended Alcoholics Anonymous and told me the most difficult thing about being sober was that she no longer had something to orient her day. Though she was about Ava’s age, drinking had been the objective of each day, and it was difficult to get through without another. I see that struggle truthfully and painfully portrayed in Ava, and I loved Ava for her strength and selflessness, even when it would be easy to focus only on her own recovery. Families torn by alcoholism are stitched back together, but Edges doesn’t ignore the scars that will remain, an awareness that makes the novel more moving. Addiction I was okay with, but I’ll admit, at first I was hesitant about the mystical elements in the book. There was never once a reason to roll my eyes; instead, I respected the beliefs and storyline because I respected the characters. Léna, unlike many authors I’ve read, did not use mystic events to add drama and mystery to the plot. Her novel focuses on characters the reader can love, and because the mysticism is part of the characters’ lives, I don’t doubt the novel’s sincerity. Lastly, the setting. There are books that make you want to pack your bags and travel. And there are books that bring the setting to you. Edges is both.“Luke let Tangerine climb up the cable first. He was panting by the time he got to the top. The sun’s angle on the earth deepened the color of the rocks to a dark watermelon. The drop into the canyons was spellbinding. The world was vast, unknowable.”The Utah landscape, both dangerous and comforting, is an apt canvas for the novel’s relationships. Few first novels find that delicate symbiosis.I enthusiastically recommend Edges, an able debut of an author who, I know, will give us many years of enjoyable stories.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lena Roy has written a terrific book for young adults on the subject of addiction. After the death of his mother, Luke’s father, Frank, starts drinking again after a long period of sobriety and is quickly reduced to a soggy, hopeless wreck. Overwhelmed by the demands of caring for an active alcoholic, and coping with his own grief, 17-year-old Luke flees New York for the Moab Desert, where he and his parents once traveled. He finds a job at the Moonflower youth hostel and lives among the quirky inhabitants. Ava, a student and sometime waitress, has recently joined Alcoholics Anonymous and although she's trying to deal with her addiction, she's having a hard time. Through AA, she meets Frank, Luke's father. She's alienated from her parents, who have themselves moved to the Moab Desert -- and that's where the miraculous connections begin to weave together. The story is told in Luke’s and Ava’s alternating points of view. It's well handled. The novel will inspire any young person dealing with addiction, autonomy and self-awareness. The issues are complicated -- God, synchronicity, life and death, our responsibility to others, forgiveness... Lena Roy shies away from nothing. Her clear-eyed portrait of what AA looks like to a newcomer is refreshing, and although she illustrates, quite beautifully, why "the program" works, she never talks down to her reader, nor does she preach. The characters are well rounded, the story intriguing, the possibilities inspiring. Highly recommended.