The Knockout Queen

The Knockout Queen
Author: Rufi Thorpe
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525567291

A Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction An InStyle Best Book of the Year A Refinery29 Best Book of the Year By the end of high school, Bunny Lampert is 6’3 with the abs of a ninja turtle and the face of a boy angel. Her dad has chaotic salesman energy and her mom is dead. But from the outside, Bunny seems to have it all⁠—she’s blonde, rich, and an Olympic volleyball hopeful. Michael⁠⁠—who has a ponytail and a septum piercing, works at Rite-Aid, and has a secret Grindr⁠—lives with his aunt in the cramped cottage next door to Bunny’s McMansion. When Bunny catches Michael smoking in her yard, he discovers that her life is not as perfect as it seems. Their friendship is as improbable as it is irresistible, but when Michael falls in love for the first time, a vicious strain of gossip circulates and a terrible, brutal act becomes the defining feature of both his and Bunny’s futures⁠⁠. A beautiful and darkly comic book about doing things you didn’t mean to do, wanting things you wish you didn’t want, and loving people you can’t afford to love.

The Girls from Corona Del Mar

The Girls from Corona Del Mar
Author: Rufi Thorpe
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2015-04-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0099591782

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 âe" 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.