The Book: My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

Date Published: August 29, 2017

Dates Read: February 16-18

Current Goodreads Rating: 3.72/5

When I was in high school I devoured books like a woman starved. As a teenager in the mid 2000s however a lot of young adult literature out there was kind of dark. I would read books of teenagers overcoming depression and crippling anxiety, young people who survived assault and rape. Looking back its surprising to me how dark a lot of young adult literature is considering that young people seem to be the most inclined to mental health issues (this opinion is not brought to you by hard facts, but by my own experiences working in the Dean's Office of a college).

My mom used to tell me that I should read something happier and I'd tell her (in my exasperated teenage voice),

"Mom, those books aren't good."

Fast forward to now, I am almost 24 years old and apparently the authors who wrote depressing YA books grew up to write depressing adult books. Or maybe adult books were always depressing and I just didn't have the experience.

I read My Absolute Darling in two days mostly because this book was kind of like when you witness an awful car crash and you know you should look away because you know you're going to see something that you will never forget. Don't get me wrong, this book is not a wreck like Winger was (curse you, Winger!), but that almost makes the story worse.

My Absolute Darling tells the story of a 14-year-old girl who calls herself Turtle. She lives in a run down house in the woods somewhere along the northern California coast. Her mother died a very long time ago and Turtle feels no kind of emotion for her whatsoever. She grew up learning survival skills from her father, Martin, who is the creepiest of dudes ever in the entire world. Seriously.

Martin believes that human beings are going to destroy the world sooner rather than later. That is the only part of Martin that I agree with. Martin believes that, in order to protect oneself from the coming utter destruction, one must own every kind of gun imaginable and know how to shoot it with perfect precision. He creepily insists on teaching his daughter everything to know about shooting animals and staying alive and, because of that, she falls behind in her actual schooling.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE:

This book is a gigantic trigger warning for anyone who has experienced sexual assault. When I say Martin is creepy he is fucking creepy. There are several sections in the novel where he finds Turtle wherever she may be just so that he can have sex with her. Then, after disappearing for months, he returns with an even younger girl who he also abuses.

I think the most tragic part about this part of the story is that it seems like Turtle actually enjoys it. This means she must have grown up with this kind of abuse, to the point where his abuse is normalized. I honestly don't know what was more sickening; the scenes where she seemed to welcome his abuse or the scenes after she realized that he was raping her.

OK, I'LL STOP RUINING THIS BOOK FOR YOU.

The beginning of Turtle's shift away from the clutches of Martin is when she meets Jacob and Brett in the woods. She basically stalks them as the blunder through the trees, judging them for their terrible survival skills. After saving their asses from getting lost (because Turtle is kind of a badass), they strike up this beautiful friendship that I honestly wish that Tallent had spent some more time on. Jacob and Brett are the kind of guys I remember from eighth grade (I mean, other than the total douchebags). Brett said stupid things while eating cheese out of a spray bottle, but he also truly cared about his friends and accepted Turtle as one of the crew almost immediately.

Side note: A girl who looks like she's been living in this forest steps out from behind the trees with a shot gun and saves your butt. Are you not going to be friends with her?

I think my favorite character in all this is Jacob. Jacob doesn't get a lot of love in this book even though I think he's supposed to be Turtle's "love interest." I like him because he's an English nerd like me. He's constantly quoting some famous author or describing how much he loves the book his English class is reading. He's one of the first characters who notices that Turtle's home-life isn't safe and he is one of the first to try to do something to change that.

Final Thoughts: I've said it before in a previous post. I like books that make me feel things. This book made me feel a lot of things: disgust, anger, sadness, but also happiness, and hopefulness. There were several instances where I laughed (that's mostly thanks to Brett) and there were several instances where I wanted to pull Turtle out of the book and keep her away from all of the bad things. This is Gabriel Tallent's first book and I'm blown away by the quality of it.

I do have a couple of small issues with the novel. First and formost (and also a mild SPOILER), I'm fairly certain that teachers can't just decide to take in their students as foster children. In fact I'm pretty certain that they cannot just decide to adopt their students no matter what situation they may be in. That being said, however, I would much rather Turtle be with her teacher than that disgusting lump of a an excuse for a human being.

Also, men like Martin (a.k.a. civilians) should not be able to go out and buy an Assault Rifle.

Long Story Short: