HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...
MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1266215,209 (3.04)4
Tired of going hungry while her parents get drunk and fight, thirteen-year-old Luli, who has just discovered the power of her sexuality, leaves Palmyra, Nebraska, for Las Vegas, Nevada, to find a "sugar daddy," and soon meets two grifters who use her while teaching her how to get by.
None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 4 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 6 (next | show all)
Bittersweet coming-of-age story about a 14-year-old who sets out to find herself a sugar daddy after her alcoholic parents abandon her, with predictable results.

The character of Luli is a heartbreaking blend of naivete and sass, responsible for herself for most of her life as her disillusioned and dissatisfied parents drink and feud their way through life. When her mother takes off with what Luli assumes to be a new boyfriend and her father hits the road in disgust, she makes the logical (for a 14-year-old who is just becoming aware of her own sexuality) decision to hit the road for Las Vegas, where she is sure she will find a sugar daddy to meet her worldly needs forever after.

Predictably, the world she leaps into with such eagerness is much less forgiving and welcoming than she had assumed it would be.

The novel is saved from unrelenting gloom by Luli's narrative voice, which is absolutely unique and spot-on. She has seen too much, yet understands too little when she sets out on her Quixotic journey, unaware that there can really be only one end.

Much is made on the cover of this novel becoming "a major motion picture", but one can hardly imagine the transition being successful. Skip the movie. Read the book. ( )
  LyndaInOregon | Dec 30, 2021 |
Wow. This is a book that takes a bit to fully digest. Andrea Portes really knows her shit for this being a debut novel. I found out about this because it is being made into a movie, and the story line sounding like my kinda thing. Young girl coming of age in the south, I dunno why, but I am a sucker for coming of age novels. Even more so when they take place in the south. Not sure why, I've never been to the south, but what can you do? This is a gritty novel in a way. The things that 13 year old Luli (it was supposed to be Lucy, but she couldn't say it and her parents gave up) gets herself into are a bit rough. Her parents are both drunks and she decides to leave and go to Las Vegas. Along the way she meets two people that will change her life (not to be dramatic or anything) Glenda and Eddie. They get her into some deep shit for lack of a better word.

Luli is a fantastic narrator. She is blunt, brave, interesting, smart and flawed. She really is a character that will stay with me for a while. I found myself thinking about her hours after I finished the novel. The pacing was great, the few situations that might really bother a person, were done in a way that let you (like Luli) sort of take yourself out of what was happening. This is one that I am glad I own, and I am almost sure I will read again and again. ( )
  banrions | Dec 7, 2021 |
I've had Hick on my wishlist for years and finally got it after watching the movie (not my usual approach). But I absolutely fell for this novel because of it and not any preconceived feelings. Luli's voice is so real, so alive that I felt like I knew her and her story is unexpected but also genuine. If you haven't read this or seen the movie, do so and do it soon. ( )
  LauraT81 | Jun 5, 2014 |
“It’s such a funny joke that there are people like that and look what I got, look what I got.”

So what does thirteen-year-old Luli got? Well, not much. She’s got a too-broke dad, a mama who’s desperately trying to replace too-broke dad, and a falling down farm house in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. She’s also got a .45 Smith and Wesson her uncle gave her as some kind of gift. Luli’s also got a newly discovered not-so-secret weapon that “… cancels out too-broke Dad and cancels out dirt-lot brawls and cancels out that leaning, falling house …. I got something that’s gonna throw me straight into the sun and leave this shitty little dust-bin behind and you just wait, you just wait, to see how I make it go boom.” When too-broke dad leaves for good this time and mama takes off with an investment banker leaving Luli behind stranded in the middle of nowhere, Luli decides to cash in on that something and “… find a sugar-daddy who will fawn over me and feed me whenever I’m hungry, not just with sugar sandwiches but with rich-people food.” No more stale saltines and Halloween candy for this girl. She’s got big plans for herself. Sugar-daddies in the middle of Nebraska are hard to come by so she sets off for Vegas. Before she gets there she’s picked up by Eddie, a cowboy-knight in shiny pick-up truck who turns out to be trouble. Things go boom all right. But before the big explosion, there’s a whole cast of characters we meet on Luli’s journey.

I loved the movie version of this story but the novel left me feeling a little flat. The novel seems incredibly dark and grim compared to the movie which has quite a few light-hearted funny moments. The characters are not as well-rounded and likeable here as they are in the movie. There is a discrepancy between Cowboy Eddie played so brilliantly by Eddie Redmayne on film and the Eddie found in the book. In the movie, Eddie is charming and vulnerable – like a wounded puppy on the side of the road who may or may not bite you. What’s so unsettling about the movie is that you can never quite figure out whether Eddie is the good guy or the bad guy. He’s also heroic and a bit romantic in spots so when movie-Luli gives movie-Eddie stealthy, long sideways glances like he just might turn out to be the butter and sugar on her white-bread sugar sandwich, never mind that he’s twice her age, never mind that he might quite possibly be a psychopath, I bought into it. Couldn’t buy into it here. In print Eddie is just too one-dimensional and mean. I liked Glenda in the movie; I didn’t like this one. Even Luli seems more naïve and intelligent in the film version than she does in print.

The screenplay, also written by Andrea Portes, IMO, is more true-to-life and believable than what goes on here in print. The advantage to reading the novel is that you get to climb inside Luli’s head and see things the way she sees them. The writing here flows pretty effortlessly and it was an easy, quick read. After all, a thirteen-year-old girl is supposed to be telling us her story. I enjoyed Luli’s stream-of-consciousness narration. Occasionally, though, I thought there were some run on for days and can't catch your breath stream of consciousness sentences that were just too poetic and too profound for any 13-year-old to come up with -even one who has been forced to grow up too fast. For the most part, Luli's voice seemed very authentic and real. Sentences like this one made me laugh and gave me the feeling that no matter how this precarious journey was going to turn out, Luli would be OK: “And maybe I am just a two-bit hick from the heartland but I do know one thing, my mama did not raise me to be skankin it in skanksville with the skanks.” Nobody's raised Luli, she's raised herself, if we can call it that, and except for a brief, wonderful moment in the story, Luli's never had a chance to be a kid. Nobody’s more aware of this than Luli herself. When one of the real good guys in the story shows up he does something audacious. He calls Luli “...just a kid” and tells someone that he doesn’t “… want her to be traumatized or anything.”

"And when I hear this, I remember that there are people in the world who would actually try to make it so you were protected.... And when I remember that there are people like that, people who would try to keep you safe and read you bedtime stories and tuck you in, people who would make you hot chocolate and put in a nightlight and kiss your forehead last thing … when I think that there are people like that, people that I never met but that exist somewhere, people that I never even dreamed of, I want to start laughing. I want to start laughing cause it’s such a funny joke. It’s such a funny joke that there are people like that and look what I got, look what I got.

That’s a good one."

There are too many Luli’s in the world.
I’ve known a few of 'em.

A good story if you can handle it. ( )
  avidmom | May 16, 2013 |
Written from the point of view - and in the dialect - of a 13-year-old girl from Nebraska who decides to run away from her deadbeat parents. As expected, the man who picks her up on the highway turns out to be trouble. I wasn't that impressed with this one. It kept my attention but I didn't really care what happened to any of the characters. The dialect was pretty tiresome too. ( )
  melydia | Oct 28, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 6 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Tired of going hungry while her parents get drunk and fight, thirteen-year-old Luli, who has just discovered the power of her sexuality, leaves Palmyra, Nebraska, for Las Vegas, Nevada, to find a "sugar daddy," and soon meets two grifters who use her while teaching her how to get by.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.04)
0.5
1 2
1.5
2 4
2.5
3 10
3.5 2
4 6
4.5
5 1

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,240,254 books! | Top bar: Always visible