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3.5 

The World Cannot Give

By Tara Isabella Burton
The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

The Secret History meets The Price of Salt” (Vogue) in this “equal parts dangerous and delicious” (Entertainment Weekly) novel about queer desire, religious zealotry, and the hunger for transcendence among the members of a cultic chapel choir at a Maine boarding school—and the ambitious, terrifyingly charismatic girl that rules over them.

When shy, sensitive Laura Stearns arrives at St. Dunstan’s Academy in Maine, she dreams that life there will echo her favorite novel, All Before Them, the sole surviving piece of writing by Byronic “prep school prophet” (and St. Dunstan’s alum) Sebastian Webster, who died at nineteen, fighting in the Spanish Civil War. She soon finds the intensity she is looking for among the insular, Webster-worshipping members of the school’s chapel choir, which is presided over by the charismatic, neurotic, overachiever Virginia Strauss. Virginia is as fanatical about her newfound Christian faith as she is about the miles she runs every morning before dawn. She expects nothing short of perfection from herself—and from the member of the choir.

Virginia inducts the besotted Laura into a world of transcendent music and arcane ritual, illicit cliff-diving and midnight crypt visits: a world that, like Webster’s novels, finally seems to Laura to be full of meaning. But when a new school chaplain challenges Virginia’s hold on the “family” she has created, and Virginia’s efforts to wield her power become increasingly dangerous, Laura must decide how far she will let her devotion to Virginia go.

The World Cannot Give is a “hypnotic and intense” (Shondaland) meditation on the power, and danger, of wanting more from the world.

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228 Reviews

3.5
“Absolutely devoured this! I don’t think I’ve ever read an entire novel in a day. That being said, this wasn’t too great. Definitely doesn’t live up to its comparison to The Secret History, which, as I read more of the “dark academia” subgenre, further cements itself as one of my favorite novels. Wish I learned more about who these characters ARE, why they do what they do. Felt a little flat.”
Surprised Face with Open Mouth“this was not I expected at all and I need someone to do a deep analysis on this and then report back to me I have never been so aggravated by a protagonist—I kept fighting for her to grow a backbone and then frustratingly had to sit through and watch her flatten herself into a doormat again and again and again. It was interesting though to have the perspective be such a kind of unlikable passive person watching all of these vibrant, strong, and assertive characters (it’s giving Nick Carraway) For such an overdone trope of the dark academia cult aesthetic I still couldn’t predict where this was going and the characters were so unique, none of them likable (except honestly justice for Bonnie). Virginia was elusive yet addictive I never once fell for her BS but also found myself just as entranced as everyone else in the story I can’t make sense of the religious imagery for being sooo much of the plot, was this lowkey a metaphor for people seeking faith and facing disillusionment with the immorality of the Capital C church? the cliffs, the shipwreck of my soul, the woods, the candlelit church, atmosphere was 👩‍🍳💋 this is going to stew in my brain for a while”

About Tara Isabella Burton

Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Here in Avalon, The World Cannot Give, and Social Creature, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The New York TimesVulture, and The Guardian. She is also the author of the nonfiction books Strange Rites and Self-Made. She has written on religion, culture, and place for The New York Times, National GeographicThe Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and more. She received a doctorate in theology from Trinity College, Oxford.

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