just_a_girl

Kirsten Krauth

just_a_girl tears into the fabric of contemporary culture. A Puberty Blues for the digital age, a Lolita with a webcam, it’s what happens when young girls are forced to grow up too fast. Or never get the chance to grow up at all.

Layla is only 14. She cruises online. She catches trains to meet strangers. Her mother, Margot, never suspects. Even when Layla brings a man into their home. Margot’s caught in her own web: an evangelical church and a charismatic pastor. Meanwhile, downtown, a man opens a suitcase and tenderly places his young lover inside.

just_a_girl is a novel about being isolated and searching for a sense of connection, faith, friendship and healing, and explores what it’s like to grow up negotiating the digital world of facebook, webcams, internet porn, mobile phones and cyberbullying – a world where the line between public and private is increasingly being eroded.

Click here to meet Layla on Pinterest.

Praise for just_a_girl:

This is a wholly original book whose teenage heroine becomes more convincing and complex as the story progresses.

THE AGE

 

Krauth’s debut is alive with ideas about isolation and connection in the digital age, particularly the way the internet raises the stakes of teenage rebellion.

THE AUSTRALIAN

 

just_a_girl is gritty, wise and frequently funny. An edgy exploration of contemporary adolescence and a perceptive examination of the complexities of mid-life, it’s a novel you’ll remember long after you read the final pages.

WENDY JAMES, AUTHOR OF THE MISTAKE

 

Kirsten’s writing startles: it’s so daringly innovative, it makes other writing seem exhausted.

SUE WOOLFE, AUTHOR OF THE OLDEST SONG IN THE WORLD

Book details

PUBLICATION DATE: 2013
FORMAT: Paperback
EXTENT: 192 pages
SIZE: 198 x 128 mm
ISBN: 9781742584959
RIGHTS: Australia and New Zealand
CATEGORY: Fiction, Kirsten Krauth,