13 [Paperback]

Mary-Lou Zeitoun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2002

First-time novelist Mary-Lou Zeitoun's 13 wryly evokes an unavoidable time and place in everyone's life -- the teenage years -- without rendering the experience into saccharine nostalgia. Zeitoun's imitation of the adolescent voice is dead-on, without falling into repetitious teenspeak.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`What made 2002 wonderful was the mind-blowing work from new writers.... Zeitoun gets right into the head of a teenager growing up in 1980 in this kick-ass comic novel....'

(Susan G Cole NOW Magazine )

`Anybody fearing for the future of Canadian writing need look no further than the authors we are showcasing today.... Reading 13 is like going through adolescence all over again. Mary-Lou Zeitoun ... has written a dramatic monologue in the voice of Marnie Harmon, a raging, passionate, smart and rebellious Ottawa teenager.... Marnie's voice, trembling between the playfulness of a child and the sneering bravado of an adolescent, is captivating.'

(Sandra Martin Globe & Mail )

`Mary-Lou Zeitoun captures the self-obsessed, sullen, frustrating essence of what it is to be a semi-outcast adolescent girl so adroitly that I got spooked.... Here we all were thinking what misunderstood individuals we were and this woman sums us all up in 144 neatly bound pages.'

(Elizabeth Bromstein NOW Magazine )

`[Zeitoun is] terrific at setting, and has a cinematic sensibility ... Zeitoun is also terrific at the pensive, vacillating, intimate, interior moments that really make a reader's breathing shift.'

(Natalee Caple Globe & Mail )

Review

`Mary-Lou Zeitoun captures the world of a teenager in all her funny, frightening, vulnerable, horrible, trouble and wonderful glory. There isn't a thing out of place in the book. Not a word or an image or sock I could point at and say, ``Aha! Wrong! Must do better!'' 13 is too good for that. I loved it.'

(Roddy Doyle, author of The Commitments )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Porcupine's Quill (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0889842329
• ISBN-13: 978-0889842328
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,836,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deal With It!, June 11, 2002

By 

Angelo (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 13 (Paperback)

After reading 13 I'm thinking vitriolic lead character Marnie would have eaten Holden Caulfield for breakfast. Zeitoun delivers a funny, acerbic account of a girl dealing with the burden of teenhood. Zeitoun's brutal honesty captures all the awkwardness and pain of adolescence, and her style and scathing sense of humour put it all into perspective. Zeitoun is truly a vibrant, exciting new voice.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Harry Potter for teenagers..., December 24, 2002

By 

Donald D'Haene "Author, Father's Touch" (London, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 13 (Paperback)

Do you remember what it's like to be 13? Mary-Lou Zeitoun remembers - and how! She captures the angst-filled world of a teenager in all its painful glory in 13, a wonderfully original story by this first time novelist. 13 should do for teenagers what Harry Potter did for children of all ages. Give them characters they can identify with and get them discovering the wonderful world of reading.

The year is 1980 and Marnie Harmon hates her real world.
"My [bedroom] window looked out on a dumb view...Nothing to see but other people's swimming pools and petunia borders. 'Marnie, don't be so Negative,' my mother always said. Mom would get mad at Anne Frank for being scared of the Nazis. She would think Anne Frank was being 'Negative'." Pg. 8.
No boring teenspeak here. Marnie is a straight-A student with razor sharp wit and the insight to go with it. Or does she? She is only 13 and besides one or two friends, she only finds comfort in dreams of meeting John Lennon. How realistic is that? Very realistic when your 13, confused about boys, parents, your life in the suburbs and one of your friends is a stripper.
Perhaps dreams not only provide escape, they are necessary.
Marnie might think her life is mediocre but I found it original, fun-filled, and Zeitoun's insight into her main character, thought provoking. Zeitoun has given Marnie a burgeoning feminist voice and strength which women twice her age could only dream of.
"[Dad] goes to a church that won't let women be priests so he was not on my side. He'd stop the prejudice if he was on my side...Dad once said...it would take two hundred more years for women to have equality so why did I bother fighting so much? That's not true. One day women didn't have the vote, the next day they did. It took one day. Sometimes it takes overnight." Page 114-5
No wonder Marnie wants to run away to New York to meet the man she imagines John Lennon to be.
Zeitoun has wonderfully interwoven real events into her main character's lives, for 1980 proves to be as "eventful" for John Lennon as it does for Marnie. I suspect there is a semi-autobiographical truth to 13's contents.
13 reminds us of our own youthful fantasies, our personal battles, and if we're old enough, disco, polyester and the days before the words "politically correct" entered our vocabulary.
Mary-Lou Zeitoun's debut novel has just been chosen one of Canada's Now Magazine's Top 10 books of 2002.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart-breakingly funny, June 13, 2002

By 

Suzy (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 13 (Paperback)

Mary-Lou Zeitoun clearly remembers the angst and excitement of the teen years. In "13", her brilliantly witty first novel, Zeitoun tells the story of Marnie, a precocious teen who doesn't fit in with the bland, drab suburban life, either at home or at school. Zeitoun's vivid, clever writing makes the reader see and feel the world the way Marnie does. Anyone who has ever been 13, or felt out of step in high school (or at any point in his/her life), will read this book with a sense of recognition and delight that someone has finally been able to express what s/he thought in those days. A remarkable, confident first novel by a fresh, new voice.