The Magnetic Girl

A Novel

De: Jessica Handler

Narrado por: Brittany Pressley, Andrew Eiden

Duración: 9 h y 18 m

Resumen del Editor

In rural North Georgia two decades after the Civil War, 13-year-old Lulu Hurst reaches high into her father's bookshelf and pulls out an obscure book, The Truth of Mesmeric Influence. Deemed gangly and undesirable, Lulu wants more than a lifetime of caring for her disabled baby brother, Leo, with whom she shares a profound and supernatural mental connection.

"I only wanted to be Lulu Hurst, the girl who captivated her brother until he could walk and talk and stand tall on his own. Then I would be the girl who could leave."

Lulu begins to "captivate" her friends and family, controlling their thoughts and actions for brief moments at a time. After Lulu convinces a cousin she conducts electricity with her touch, her father sees a unique opportunity. He grooms his tall and indelicate daughter into an electrifying new woman: The Magnetic Girl. Lulu travels the Eastern seaboard, captivating enthusiastic crowds by lifting grown men in parlor chairs and throwing them across the stage with her "electrical charge."

While adjusting to life on the vaudeville stage, Lulu harbors a secret belief that she can use her newfound gifts, as well as her growing notoriety, to heal her brother. As she delves into the mysterious book's pages, she discovers keys to her father's past and her own future - but how will she harness its secrets to heal her family?

Gorgeously envisioned, The Magnetic Girl is set at a time when the emerging presence of electricity raised suspicions about the other-worldly gospel of spiritualism, and when women's desire for political, cultural, and sexual presence electrified the country. Squarely in the realm of Emma Donoghue's The Wonder and Leslie Parry's Church of Marvels, The Magnetic Girl is a unique portrait of a forgotten period in history, seen through the story of one young woman's power over her family, her community, and ultimately, herself.

©2019 Jessica Handler (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

couldn't finish listening to the story

couldn't finish it, was slow and didn't catch a good plot and a bit distressing

The synopsis lied. This book was not exciting.

Reading this equated to trying to swim in quicksand. It was heavy and for the most part tiresome. The characters were mediocre, including Lu Lu, the MC. And that is sad considering some of the things that happen to her. She may or may not have serious injured her brother for life. Her father is using her for financial gain. Lu Lu finds out she is far from unique and on the weaker end of the "magnetic" scale. And last but not least, a man she holds a romantic interest in betrays her after she tells him some of her secrets.

Clearly, this should have been an absorbing book with pages quickly turned. It isn't. Her cousin garnered dislike from her first sentence, but Lu Lu was right behind her. Dirt poor, after riding on trains, performing, and donning decent clothing, Lu Lu becomes vain, egotistical and wrapped up in her own hype. The mother is as bland as tepid dishwater and the father...nothing good...