3.5
The World Cannot Give
ByPublisher 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.
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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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities246 Reviews
3.5
Marley Barberio
Created 6 days agoShare
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summer🪽
Created 22 days agoShare
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“‘laura is a fool,laura has always been a fool’
truly,I thought there would be more character evolvement for laura but i also don’t think that was the point. i feel a bit terrible for laughing at virginia’s unravelling half way through-however i could not have predicted that ending.
i like what this novel had to say about extremism for the sake of it and i’m reflecting on boundless belief without reasoning,magnetism and the cult energy that easily follows insular environments,especially in academic settings.
ps would have loved more bonnie,freddy,miranda and isobel and more background on the ‘gentlemen’”
Jess L.S.
Created about 1 month agoShare
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“This book has so much potential- I found myself wondering when it would get interesting for so long that I eventually finished nearly half the book just hoping it'd end. I felt so much relief once it occurred to me that I had no obligation to finish it. The dialogue was unrealistic and stiff. Quite honestly, after reading other reviews, I think I might finish it and try to give it a fairer shot.”
“What gives life meaning? This was the central question of this surprisingly layered young adult fiction, calling into question God, organized religion, school systems and the concept of what makes us matter. Virginia, even though I disagreed with a lot of the choices she made, ends up as one of my favorite characters in literature. Steadfast in something stronger than God and in community, Virginia only saw a life worth living if it was lived in a way that made one significant. She gave in to her definition of mattering so much that it felt the world couldn’t keep up with her. Each character became more individualized as the story went on, each chasing whatever they felt would make them matter, a question that Laura struggled to find the answer to throughout the story. Everyone wanted so much from the world. Yet, the world could only give so much.”skywalkerem
Created about 1 month agoShare
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“I ate this up. I loved the overly pretentious characters and the naive main character. I love the religious themes and queer desire and how terrible everyone turned out to be, as obvious as it was from the beginning. Every time the word sclerotic came up I chucked a little.”
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 Times, Vulture, 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 Geographic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and more. She received a doctorate in theology from Trinity College, Oxford.
Other books by Tara Isabella Burton
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