Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Handbook for Beautiful People
    A Handbook for Beautiful People
    A Handbook for Beautiful People
    Ebook256 pages5 hours

    A Handbook for Beautiful People

    By Jennifer Spruit

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    When twenty-two-year-old Marla finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she wishes for a family, but faces precariousness: an uncertain future with her talented, exacting boyfriend, Liam; constant danger from her roommate, Dani, a sometime prostitute and entrenched drug addict; and the unannounced but overwhelming needs of her younger brother, Gavin, whom she has brought home for the first time from deaf school. Forcing her hand is Marla’s fetal alcohol syndrome, which sets her apart but also carries her through. When Marla loses her job and breaks her arm in a car accident, Liam asks her to marry him. It’s what she’s been waiting for: a chance to leave Dani, but Dani doesn’t take no for an answer. Marla stays strong when her mother shows up drunk, creates her own terms when Dani publicly shames her, and then falls apart when Gavin attempts suicide. It rains, and then pours, and when the Bow River finally overflows, flooding Marla’s entire neighbourhood, she is ready to admit that she wants more for her child than she can possibly give right now. Marla’s courage to ask for help and keep her mind open transforms everyone around her, cementing her relationships and proving to those who had doubted her that having a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder does not make a person any less noble, wise or caring.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInanna Poetry and Fiction Series
    Release dateSep 15, 2017
    ISBN9781771334440
    A Handbook for Beautiful People
    Author

    Jennifer Spruit

    Jennifer Spruit grew up in Lloydminster, AB/SK, alongside pump jacks, farm machinery, and its endless, sparkling winter sky. Her affair with writing began with a Grade One story about a tractor, but she has since become engaged in writing about people. She studied Creative Writing at UBC and now lives in Courtenay, on Vancouver Island, where she enjoys playing folk and bluegrass, teaching kids, and rowing a blue canoe. Her work has appeared in Arc, The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire Magazine, and SubTerrain Magazine, among others. A Handbook for Beautiful People is her debut novel. She is currently at work on a second novel.

    Related to A Handbook for Beautiful People

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      100-WORD-STORY COMPETITION Winners

      Aug 16, 2022

      We’ve been delighted by the huge response to our 100-word-story competition. The entries have flooded in thick and fast during the past few months, but while we’ve enjoyed reading every story, only a few can come out on top! You, our readers, voted t

      5 min read

    • Article

      This Town Has Become a Museum

      Sep 21, 2021

      This Town Has Become a Museum
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Day At The Beach For Aphrodite

      Jul 1, 2023

      A Day At The Beach For Aphrodite
      14 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2020

      Cricket League
      7 min read

    • Article

      Seven Poems

      May 1, 2023

      There was a boy even stranger than I waswho’d call me in the eveningto see if I’d come to Scouts. Something in mehesitated. Then one morning during eighth grade English we got hall passesand did it in a stall in the bathroomtaking turns over the john

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Periodic Stranger: When exile becomes home.

      Dec 12, 2013

      My roots are in a hilltop village west of Matera, where rabbit and boar run riot in the fields. Figs, apricots, and pears hang in heavy clusters, at eye-level and within easy reach. There, the local girls are famous for their calves, made firm and st

      21 min read

    • Article

      The Periodic Stranger

      Mar 2, 2017

      My roots are in a hilltop village west of Matera, where rabbit and boar run riot in the fields. Figs, apricots, and pears hang in heavy clusters, at eye-level and within easy reach. There, the local girls are famous for their calves, made firm and st

      21 min read

    • Article

      Cul-de-Sac

      Dec 1, 2021

      That old rage for order: how my father drove a square mouthed mower over-and-back, over-and-back, each row of neatly trimmed grass cut just like he told his barber: boy’s short, regular. O pioneer, taming this joke bit of prairie, no bindweed or dog

      5 min read

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      Maybe It Won’t Be That Bad

      Dec 9, 2019

      Maybe It Won’t Be That Bad
      4 min read

    • Article

      People Are Strange

      Oct 13, 2019

      People Are Strange
      5 min read

    • Article

      It’s Come to This

      Sep 1, 2021

      It’s Come to This
      16 min read

    • Article

      Not Quite MR DARCY

      Aug 10, 2022

      Not Quite MR DARCY
      6 min read

    • Article

      Marco

      Mar 1, 2022

      THE ALLEY STANK . Marco could feel the damp soaking into his tunic as he pressed his back against the wall, trying to seem like part of the shadows. He cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid? He knew if he stayed out after dark they might f

      6 min read

    • Article

      Second Language

      Aug 14, 2017

      Second Language
      9 min read

    • Article

      Towns Like Ours

      May 3, 2018

      Towns Like Ours
      9 min read

    • Article

      Are You Lonesome Tonight?

      Aug 8, 2019

      Are You Lonesome Tonight?
      6 min read

    • Article

      HINTERLAND & HAMLETS

      Jul 31, 2019

      HINTERLAND & HAMLETS
      6 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      Carrot Legs

      Sep 12, 2019

      Carrot Legs
      20 min read

    • Article

      Blue ICE

      Dec 12, 2023

      Blue ICE
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Storyteller

      Aug 8, 2023

      The Storyteller
      3 min read

    • Article

      Running Away

      Feb 22, 2021

      Leaving London behind her, Millie drove faster, picturing thousands of crazed fans in pursuit, desperate for what – a lock of her hair? Or Julian; except after the last gig, somehow she knew he wouldn’t follow. She knew from bitter experience that di

      5 min read

    • Article

      Blue ICE

      Dec 8, 2021

      Blue ICE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Local Life

      May 7, 2020

      Local Life
      8 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2023

      Jester-necked pile of ideasfattening by the cutting board.I have known the summer wall,it says slowly. The hillside facessouth into the valley.Dew on the tomato plants.Anything that grows, swarms,bunches itself against a stayand cannot stay. The vine

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Handbook for Beautiful People

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Handbook for Beautiful People - Jennifer Spruit

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1