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    Nicotine
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    Nicotine
    Unavailable
    Nicotine
    Audiobook10 hours

    Nicotine

    Written by Nell Zink

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    3/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    From the much acclaimed author of MISLAID and THE WALLCREEPER, a fierce and audaciously funny novel of families—both the ones we’re born into and the ones we create—a story of obsession, idealism, and ownership, centered around a young woman who inherits her bohemian late father’s childhood home.

    “She wills her body to be equally wraithlike. Not sodden, not heavy, not dead, but filled with crackling, electric life, like a stale Marlboro on fire.”

    Unemployed business major, Penny, has rebelled against her family her whole life – by being the conventional one. Her mother was a member of a South American tribe; her father was a Jewish Shamanist with a psychedelic 'healing centre'. But everything changes when her father dies and Penny inherits his childhood home. Left weightless and unmoored after being the only member of her family with time for her dying father, Penny then finds his property occupied by a group of squatters, united in defence of smokers' rights – and herself unexpectedly besotted with them, particularly Rob, the hot bicycle-and-tobacco activist.

    Totally addictive and dangerously good, ‘Nicotine’ is a fiercely funny novel in which passion is politics and nonviolence is the opposite of surrender.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9780008179205
    Unavailable
    Nicotine
    Author

    Nell Zink

    Nell Zink grew up in rural Virginia. She has worked in a variety of trades, including masonry and technical writing. In the early 1990s, she edited an indie rock fanzine. Her books include The Wallcreeper, Mislaid, Private Novelist, and Nicotine, and her writing has appeared in n+1, Granta, and Harper’s. She lives near Berlin, Germany.

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    Reviews for Nicotine

    3/5

    43 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Nowhere near as witty and fast moving as her first novel. I also found the characterisations erring on the caricature and the evolving plot neat to the point of contrived. I scored her 3 stars for the starkly realistic description of Penny's father's deathbed. It was confronting and honest. Unfortunately it was downhill from there.
    • 3/5
      Psychedelic misfits. I really had a hard time understanding these characters. Maybe it is because I am from a different generation. Could not understand people who seem to have nothing to do but squat in empty homes for causes that I couldn't understand. It seemed to me that the individuals certainly seemed to have enough money for doing things, just not paying rent. The writing was intense, with much verbiage of a political tone. I just think I am not all that politically knowledgeable, so it didn't fit in my little world.
    • 4/5
      Joy's Review: A young woman deals with the loss of her father and a complete lack of purpose by winding up in a communal living situation. It took me a while to find the rhythm of this book, but once I connected with the style, I enjoyed it very much. Funny and sarcastic, Zink pokes fun at all of us who think we know what we want, but really don't. I found it very entertaining. But I warn you: most of our book club hated this book!
    • 4/5
      I really, really liked this book, but find it hard to review. I was telling some friends what it was about, and they thought it would be very dark and off-putting....but it isn't. Penny is a young woman caring for her dying father (Norm) who is a shaman. Her mother, Amalia, was adopted by Norm, but several years later, marries him. Penny has two half brothers...what happened to their mother is a mystery...who are slightly older than her mother. After Norm dies, Penny agrees to reclaim a family-owned home now occupied by squatters. Those squatters are quasi-anarchists/revolutionaries. Their common interest is smokers' rights. Penny falls in love with one of them, as do her sociopath oldest brother and her widowed mother. It's all very unconventional, but makes sense in the context of the characters' lives and isn't dark or sunny...it's both/neither...as they say, "it is what it is" and we adapt to our surroundings.The story is about coming of age, understanding that the past isn't as definitive as we'd like....people have different perspectives and understandings of what happened and why. It's a really good read and I''ll be reading more of Ms. Zink's works.