Find your next favorite audiobook
Become a member today and listen free for 30 daysStart your free 30 daysBook Information
Tampa
Written by Alissa Nutting
Narrated by Kathleen McInerney
Book Actions
Start Listening- Publisher:
- HarperAudio
- Released:
- Jul 2, 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780062283528
- Format:
- Audiobook
Editor's Note
Description
Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She's undeniably attractive. She drives a red Corvette with tinted windows. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed, and devoted to her.
But Celeste's devotion lies elsewhere. She has a singular sexual obsession—fourteen-year-old boys. Celeste pursues her craving with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought; her sole purpose in becoming a teacher is to fulfill her passion and provide her access to her compulsion. As the novel opens, fall semester at Jefferson Jr. High is beginning.
In mere weeks, Celeste has chosen and lured the lusciously naive Jack Patrick into her web. Jack is enthralled and in awe of his teacher, and, most important, willing to accept Celeste's terms for a secret relationship—car rides after school; rendezvous at Jack's house while his single father works late; body-slamming encounters in Celeste's empty classroom between periods.
Ever mindful of the danger—the perpetual risk of exposure, Jack's father's own attraction to her, and the ticking clock as Jack leaves innocent boyhood behind—the hyperbolically insatiable Celeste bypasses each hurdle with swift thinking and shameless determination, even when the solutions involve greater misdeeds than the affair itself. In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress driven by pure motivation. She deceives everyone, and cares nothing for anyone or anything but her own pleasure.
With crackling, rampantly unadulterated prose, Tampa is a grand, uncompromising, seriocomic examination of want and a scorching literary debut.
Book Actions
Start ListeningBook Information
Tampa
Written by Alissa Nutting
Narrated by Kathleen McInerney
Editor's Note
Description
Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She's undeniably attractive. She drives a red Corvette with tinted windows. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed, and devoted to her.
But Celeste's devotion lies elsewhere. She has a singular sexual obsession—fourteen-year-old boys. Celeste pursues her craving with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought; her sole purpose in becoming a teacher is to fulfill her passion and provide her access to her compulsion. As the novel opens, fall semester at Jefferson Jr. High is beginning.
In mere weeks, Celeste has chosen and lured the lusciously naive Jack Patrick into her web. Jack is enthralled and in awe of his teacher, and, most important, willing to accept Celeste's terms for a secret relationship—car rides after school; rendezvous at Jack's house while his single father works late; body-slamming encounters in Celeste's empty classroom between periods.
Ever mindful of the danger—the perpetual risk of exposure, Jack's father's own attraction to her, and the ticking clock as Jack leaves innocent boyhood behind—the hyperbolically insatiable Celeste bypasses each hurdle with swift thinking and shameless determination, even when the solutions involve greater misdeeds than the affair itself. In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress driven by pure motivation. She deceives everyone, and cares nothing for anyone or anything but her own pleasure.
With crackling, rampantly unadulterated prose, Tampa is a grand, uncompromising, seriocomic examination of want and a scorching literary debut.
- Publisher:
- HarperAudio
- Released:
- Jul 2, 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780062283528
- Format:
- Audiobook
About the author
Related to Tampa
Reviews
I liked it. Nutting is no Nabokov but so few writers are that it barely matters. I wouldn't want all my narrators to be this disturbing and amoral, but I'm willing to put up with the odd one or two.
Also to examine society's views on something like this when it happens.
The character is sick but Nutting brings something incredibly gross to life with some great writing.
Ending is meh.
"This is an odd one to rate and review. Was it well-written? Oh, yeah. Almost... too well-written. Felt a couple times like the plot was a bit too overtly manipulated to steer the story toward a particular conclusion, but maybe I'm just being picky.Was it entertaining? Hell, yeah. It was hilarious, in the way that sociopaths can be hilarious with their overriding desire to please themselves at the expense of all others (and specifically, Celeste's inner thoughts about those around her.) The voice of this novel felt so real and so alive, it would be hard to believe that this specific person doesn't actually exist out there, somewhere.Was it arousing in uncomfortable ways. Well, yeah. As a guy, it's difficult not to imagine my own 14-year old self being in that situation, and how amazing it would have been. But then my 14-year old son would walk into the room while I was reading, and that fantasy reading world would come crashing down around me like a controlled demolition. That's when the creepy factor really sets in with this book. Removing yourself from Celeste's fantasy world (which is all-encompassing, as this is written from her first-person perspective) makes the book uncomfortable. Imagining if the gender roles were reversed, makes it creepy as fuck.Bravo, Alissa Nutting, for creating one of the most memorable characters I've ever read. But this is not a book I plan on revisiting any time soon. Or ever."
This book is about a middle school teacher called Celeste who is obsessed with underaged boys. I read this a few years ago - and I read it in a few days.
I will say, this book is really well-written, but it contains a lot of sex, masturbation and everything in between.
This book has a really strong narrative voice - I started reading this book because I like reading about female characters who aren't inherently 'good'.
And Celeste is a terrible, terrible person.
I really liked this book - I don't think it's for everyone, but I love how unapologetic Nutting is in her writing of this novel.