|
Like the Red Panda (Harvest Book) | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrea Seigel
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $0.01
You Save: $13.99 (100%)
New (59) Used (140) Collectible (5) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  52 reviews
Sales Rank: 352175
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0156030241
EAN: 9780156030243
ASIN: 0156030241
Publication Date: April 5, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New!! 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Like the Red Panda is debut author Andrea Seigel's brutal answer to the throngs of Chick Lit novels that have inundated book clubs and influenced the big screen over the past decade. Stella Parrish, Seigel's tragic heroine, is 17, extremely wise beyond her years, completely alienated from her peers and her foster family, and determined to kill herself before she arrives at Princeton's gates in the fall. Seigel's task here is difficult--she's created a character of extraordinary depth, given her an unpleasant (at best) mission, and attempted to make her amusing and interesting, all at the same time. In many ways, the author's success should be widely applauded, even if she falls short on occasion. Like the Red Panda enjoys its greatest success when Stella is commenting on the people around her. Her wry observations about her cranky old grandfather, her pot-smoking classmates in AP English, and her brilliant, unmotivated drug-dealing ex-boyfriend paint an equally amusing and insightful portrait of suburban life in America. When describing the temple-going practices of her jumpy and awkward foster parents, Stella explains that services are held on Sunday morning instead of Saturday, "mostly so everyone could be on the same worship schedule as their Christian friends. This benefited cross-religion plan-making on the weekends." When Seigel strays from witty observations like these, the novel has a tendency to lose its quirky appeal and simply becomes a tale of disenchanted youth. Thankfully, Like the Red Panda delivers more laughs than tears, and rewards readers with a unique blend of one-part teenage angst mixed with two-parts comedic wit. --Gisele Toueg
Product Description
Stella Parrish is seventeen, attractive, smart, deeply alienated, and unable to countenance life's absurdities. She is not nihilistic; she is prematurely exhausted. Since her parents OD'd on designer drugs when she was eleven, she has lived with well-meaning but inexperienced foster parents, while her grandfather, her only living relative, tries ever more ingenious ways of committing suicide in his retirement home. Here are the last two weeks of Stella's senior year in Orange County, California: the intensive AP final exams; the childish, celebratory trips; the totemic importance attached to graduation. Beneath Stella's mordantly funny take on her life is the decisiveness with which she disengages from it, planting clues and providing explanations for those who will try to understand the act she is about to commit. With perfect pitch, remarkable wit, and a spare, vivid prose, Stella turns her farewell to suburbia into a wry philosophical inquiry.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 47 more reviews...
 She's not Holden-- She's better! February 22, 2008
Stella's always been detached; two weeks before high school graduation, Princeton shining in the fall, she takes a look at her life and decides to kill herself. Stella's suicide isn't an act of defeat or desperation. Indeed, over the course of the novel various characters and circumstances offer alternatives and opportunities that in a more conventional book would cause her to change her mind. It's a credit to Seigel's beautiful writing and brilliant, subtly drawn characters and scenes that you end up hoping that Stella will carry though with her plans to die.
Freed from conventions by her impending death, Stella befriends Ainsley, the nearly invisible best friend of the school's queen bee, reconnects with her own ex-boyfriend, and confronts her apathetic foster mother. Stella's last two weeks are an affirmation and exploration of her life; you cannot disagree that at the end she has lived fully and truly.
I particularly enjoyed the first person point of view employed by Seigel, the book takes the form of Stella's journal. Stella's matter-of-fact take on her self and her surroundings invites the reader to consider what is not being said, and what it means about Stella that she does not think to say it.
This is a poignant, beautiful book. Read it.
Haunting and scary.... March 16, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've always been an optimist, despite experiences with anxiety and depression. I've also always believed that when people are incurably sick they should have the right to end their lives the way they want, when they want. I'd never really thought about people that were mentally ill, but after reading this book I was stunned and speechless. If the main character where my friend I would have no idea what to say or do. The author does such a frighteningly good job of conveying the emptiness and inability to attach to anyone or anything that I could think of no other way for the book to end. I kept waiting for something to change, some magic intervention and it didn't come. And although I was sad, I was also profoundly respectful of an author that could not only make me feel for this character but didn't insult the book with a slap-dash happy ending. I didn't see this book coming. It's not really about depression, it's about meaninglessness. This book took a while to shake off.
So good I think I have a crush on the author. December 14, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Seigel's debut novel, Like the Red Panda, is written journal-style: a brilliant Princeton-bound high school senior attempting to explain why she is going to commit suicide. What can I say about this young author's first book other than "Wow." She takes on a heavy topic (or really, a number of them, as the protagonist has been orphaned, is friendless, lives a life that is basically invisibly to her odd foster parents, and dates a drug dealer) and without cheating the subject matter, keeps the read (for the most part) light and funny. Her writing is skillful and smart but unpretentious. I heard the term chick-lit thrown about as I read reviews for this novel -- it is no such thing. It is a moving coming-of-age novel, and, put simply, a worthy read.
Oh yeah, one final note: A couple of people have criticized the novel as basically a Catcher In The Rye rip-off. This is, in a word, stupid. Salinger's novel hits so many readers because the theme is so universal. How then can it be surprising that he has not been the only author to tackle that theme? Is Salinger (who incidentally IS one of my favorite authors) to have the final word on teen angst? Did he tackle the topic so thoroughly and definitively that there is nothing left to say? Of course not. Such a suggestion is absurd. Sure, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but some opinions are better left unheard. Seigel's take on the theme is both moving and entertaining.
Lingers in your mind November 17, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I debated about reading this novel because I knew it dealt with suicide and that's not my favorite topic to read about. But I read this anyway and I'm glad I did.
The book is written in diary form, with Stella leaving it behind as her last memories of the world when she kills herself. She didn't seem that suicidal but rather bored with her life and wanting to do something that left behind a legacy. That made reading this all the more interesting, because she wasn't the typical depressed teen.
Each day she writes is filled with amusing observations and memories about the world around her and such insightful writing. I could not put this book down because it was written so well!! I wanted to know everything - will she kill herself? what will happen with the one gil who's becoming her friend? what's up with the guy she's sort of dating?
I know this book is darker than most - it's not candy-coated chick lit, but the writing is so much depper and so much more insightful that any of those books. I will be recommending this to everyone, and I'll have to buy the author's next book when it comes out!
andrea rules August 24, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I wish this book had been around when I was a teenager. Funny and sad all at once-- much like my own teenage years. Like the Red Panda is brilliant in its ability to address complex issue with simple, intelligent and wry prose. So yeah, buy the book, it's good.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
