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Sweetgirl: A Novel
Sweetgirl: A Novel
Sweetgirl: A Novel
Ebook232 pages2 hours

Sweetgirl: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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A teen searches for her mother in a blizzard, rescues a baby and goes on the run from criminals in this “hilarious, heartbreaking and true” debut (NPR).

As a blizzard bears down, Percy James sets off to find her troubled mother, Carletta, who’s been unraveling for as long as her daughter can remember. Fearing Carletta is strung out on meth and won’t survive the storm, Percy heads for the cabin of her mother’s dealer, Shelton Potter, deep in the woods of northern Michigan.

But instead of Carletta, Percy discovers a crying baby girl alone in a freezing room. Percy knows she must save her—a split-second decision that commences a dangerous odyssey in which Percy must battle the elements and evade a small band of desperate criminals on her trail.

Filled with the sweeping sense of cultural and geographic isolation of its setting, Sweetgirl is an affecting exploration of courage, sacrifice, and the ties that bind, a taut and darkly humorous tour de force that is horrifying, tender, and hopeful.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 2, 2016
ISBN9780062400840
Author

Travis Mulhauser

Travis Mulhauser is from Petoskey, Michigan. He lives currently in Durham, North Carolina with his wife and two children and earned his MFA from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

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Reviews for Sweetgirl

Rating: 3.9137931258620693 out of 5 stars
4/5

58 ratings9 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My first 'mystery' novel from Blind Date with a Book, and such a good selection! I don't know if I would ever have chosen to read a book like this, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story.'Everything got sideways,' he said. 'It all got twisted around.' So says one of the characters in this quirky adventure, and I couldn't put it better myself. Sixteen year old Percy James heads through the snow in northern Michigan to find her estranged doped-up mother at a notorious dealer's house, and instead finds a neglected baby freezing to death by an open window. Instead of returning to her truck and driving to hospital, Percy sets off on foot with the baby to her mother's ex boyfriend, Portis Dale, seeking help. When she changes the baby's nappy, they find terrible sores on her body and realise she needs urgent medical attention, but Portis' truck is also parked miles away. So they have to hike through the woods, in a blizzard, with a malnourished baby. And then they realise that Shelton Potter, the dealer living with the baby's drug addict mother, is coming to get the baby back.A breathless blend of True Grit and Fargo, I found myself instantly caught up in Percy's (mis)adventures - all she wanted to do was keep the baby safe from her whacked-out mother, only to find herself on the run from a dangerous and completely unstable man, in sub-zero temperatures, hiking across treacherous terrain in unsuitable footwear. Whatever happened to just calling the police? Percy is a great character with a pioneer spirit and a wry sense of humour, and Portis is equally droll but also full of midwestern wisdom. I even felt sorry for addle-brained Shelton, mourning the death of his dog and trying to do the best by the baby and his mother. There is a lot of substance abuse in this book, but I'm guessing there's not a lot more to do in small, cold town.This is the author's debut novel, but I would definitely read more of his work. Recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh my word. Travis Mulhauser!

    Signs of a great writer:

    1) The ability to horrify the reader with what's happening while making them laugh. Check.
    2) Writing from first person POV and swapping with third person - and reader doesn't care/notice/give a damn. Check.
    3) Writes about what's happening to his characters in such a way the reader rubs her toes, thinking they too are frost bit. Check.

    I read this while flying to and from New Orleans for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. It was the perfect airport/plane seat read because I had no clue I was trapped in such crowded conditions. Nope. I was in Michigan with Percy, Shelton (Jughead!), Portis, and all the others.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I think SWEETGIRL was a Michigan Notable book a couple years back, and deservedly so. Travis Mulhauser is quite a writer. This story of drug addicts and crazies in northern Michigan is just one hell of a ride. Its heroine, 16 year-old Percy James, is doing her best to rise above her roots and her meth-addicted mother. And then suddenly there's this screaming, neglected baby that she finds in a meth house, and of course she has to rescue it, and it all takes place in the midst of a raging northern blizzard. And therein hangs this tale - a barreling, non-stop ride of terror and tenderness, leavened with chuckles and amazement at the stupidity & brain-scrambled, drug-addled madness of Shelton Potter, a 'big-headed' villain you can't quite bring yourself to hate. And there's Portis, the closest thing to a father that Percy's ever known, whose wisdom and love shows through the cracks of his whiskey-soaked sadness.And speaking of Portis, you can't help but think of TRUE GRIT's heroine as you share Percy's flight through the snow-covered woods seeking aid for the baby she's grabbed and run with. I thought too of another classic thriller, John Smolens' chilling Upper Peninsula novel, COLD. Or another winter chiller that came to mind was Bill Roorbach's THE REMEDY FOR LOVE. But that's just me - always looking for comparisons. This Mulhauser guy, he's got his own writing chops. He's damn good. I enjoyed the hell outa this book. Very highly recommended. - Tim Bazzett, author of the Michigan memoir, REED CITY BOY
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At sixteen, Percy is more grown up than most at her age. Her mother is a meth addict, who has disappeared. Percy goes to the dealer's house to find her mother but instead comes across an unattended baby. She takes the baby and beings a journey through a wild blizzard to get the baby to safety.A great debut novel!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dieses Jugendbuch wurde überall recht positiv besprochen, so dass es in unserem Korsika-Urlaub auch alle lesen wollten, zuerst mein Mann, dann ich und nun meine Tochter.Und es ist wirklich ein tolles Buch. Die sechzehnjährige Percy hat die Schule geschmissen um sich um ihre drogenabhängige Mutter zu kümmern. Auch zu Beginn des Buches ist sie auf der Suche nach ihr, doch sie beim Dealer ihrer Mutter findet sie ein verwahrlostes Baby. Dieses möchte sie retten, sie nimmt es mit und will es in die Notaufnahme bringen.In Michigan ist aber ein unglaublicher Schneesturm und Sheldon, der Dealer, merkt irgendwann auch, dass das Baby verschwunden ist.Das Buch ist spannend und aberwitzig. Die Charaktere sind super gezeichnet - bis hin zu Baby Jenna. Percy ist ein starkes Mädchen, ohne Selbstmitleid macht sie sich Gedanken. Ihr Verständnis ihrer eigenen Chancen und Grenzen ist erstaunlich. Ich mochte aber auch die Darstellung des Dealers Sheldon, seine Eitelkeit, seine Unsicherheit. Dass man Carlettas Exfreund Portis einfach lieben muss, ist sowieso klar. Der Autor hat die Milieus, in denen das Buch spielt, sehr gut erfasst. Er erzählt eine schöne Geschichte von Erwachsenwerden und Abnabelung, mit einer ungewöhnlichen Handlung.Und am Ende laufen die Tränen...
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A surehanded debut with a lean, quickly moving plot, good characters and an effective setting. The only thing that took me out of the experience was the dialogue, fabulous and pithy, but possibly a little more polished than you would actually hear coming out of the mouths of methheads, old Michigander alcoholics and a careworn but spunky teen dropout. It was like a book (a pretty good one, really) peopled entirely by Boyd Crowders.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is pretty good, especially for a debut, and if I'd been feeling slightly more generous I would have bumped it up to four. Percy is a great character with a well-realized voice, and the story -- which revolves around a baby that Percy kidnaps or rescues (depending on your perspective) from a negligent mother -- is simple but compelling. But I don't think that the mix of third-person and first-person works (if Dickens can't sell me on it in Bleak House, I'm not going to buy it here, but that may be a personal issue) and I thought the ending was a bit of a mess.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A promising debut novel. If one wants a "genre" classifications, I'd call this "grit lit plus chick lit" but it's so much more. Library book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Somethings did not add up. Such as the length of the hikes the protagonist took to 1) get from the crack-farm to her mother's ex-boy friend home. She stated it was 1/2 mile but the trek was endless. 2) the trek from ex-boyfriends house to his truck which was parked away from his house. They hiked for hours! Noted there was snow and it was Michigan and dead winter. 3) How does a crack head mother not freeze in a blizzard also wandering around lost in a druged haze. 4) why not hop on the abandoned snow mobile? I know it's just me but stuff like that bugs the liver lips out of me.5) everyone's trucks worked and operated in the snow including the crack mom's bonnieville! !!!!! But the ex boyfriend manages to drive off the road and get stuck. I read this quickly and the writing is compelling, interesting and fast paced. I cared about the characters and envisioned the cast of Justified as I raced through the book. I was particularly impressed with the ex's vocabulary though it was never explained in a back story. Which actually makes the story better. A very good first book.

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Sweetgirl - Travis Mulhauser

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