This is what I call a WOW book. At the end of it, you turn the last page and say.....WOW. As a young woman dies and seals the fate of her killers, the sister of one of the killers weaves their story through the fall of 2009 when all of them would cease being children. Told through her eyes, readers enter the story well before the murder is planned. We see the struggles that will dictate decisions made at each step along the path and try not to realize that this tradegy could happen in too many lives to make it scary, just sad. Stewart O'Nan took this reader on a trip through a nightmare that came to be all too real. Great read for an easy 5 stars.

Like most coastal cities, Ocean State was divided between the haves and the have nots. Miles was a have, rich, attractive and the one all the girls sighed over. Birdy was poor but attractive and popular. When these two get together, it was a secret as Miles has a three year girlfriend and Birdy a steady boyfriend. But, inevitably, the secret leaks out with tragic circumstances.

This story is told by Marie, Birdy's little sister who was nine at the time but telling the story as an adult many years later. When Birdy and Miles' relationship leaks out, Birdy is scorned at her high school, branded as a man stealer and a slut. She is physically attacked by Miles's girlfriend. The girlfriend also demands things of Miles to stay with him, auditing his phone, making him promise to never talk or look at Birdy and eventually forcing him to make an assignation with Birdy at their secret hideaway. But this assignation is a setup to again beat up Birdy with both Miles and the girlfriend participating. But things don't go as planned and the girlfriend ends up dead.

Stewart O'Nan is an author who writes about New England and the surrounding states. His work portrays the working people of the region and the way their lives have changed as manufacturing has moved overseas. This book portrays the angst of teenage relationships and the way that they can go wrong, sometimes with deadly results. The reader will emphasize more with Marie than any of the main protagonists as Marie is an innocent child struggling to understand what went wrong and what will happen to the older sister she idolizes. I listened to this book and the narrator, while not having the strong New England accent, still portrays the sorrow and pain that this family went through. This novel is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

I am a fan of O’Nan’s well-written novels. His characters are always believable and present ordinary individuals. His novels are generally set in New England as is Ocean State.. Four women/teens are the main characters. Two teenage girls are both dating the same boy. One is murdered. The accused mother and younger sister are the other main characters. The younger sister functions as the observer. There is a lot of name angst and a definite class division. The novel is, as usual, well-written, the characters are believable, however I felt I was reading a YA-crossover novel.

Talk about a novel that did not get the attention it deserved….wow. I loved this. Stewart O’Nan has written unforgettable characters in a quiet and familiar setting for those of us in the northeast. The writing is beautiful and lyrical, and the page count is short. I would recommend this for fans of Liz Moore, and potentially Megan Abbott. The story focuses on a murder, and a family—and the stories they tell themselves and others to make peace with the darkness surrounding the event. It’s SO good.

The whole story was basically given away at the beginning which led to lack of tension throughout which in turn made it hard to hold attention.

This is a story of teenage love, jealousy and revenge with a murderous twist. We know right from page one that there has been a murder and who is responsible but such is the skill of O’Nan’s writing that the suspense and tension is expertly maintained throughout the narrative. I found it an absorbing and compelling tale, tenderly written with insight, perception and acute observation. The phrase “master storyteller” is often overused but is especially apt here – this is a novelist at the top of his game. Each character is richly drawn and comes alive on the page. The setting in Rhode Island is vividly portrayed, as is the life of the families caught up in the tragedy. It’s a chilling tale of obsession and one I enjoyed very much.

This was my first book by Stewart O’Nan and it will not be my last. I liked the concept of beginning with the ending and then backing up to show the events that led up to it. A great read!

This is the first book that I've read by Stewart O'Nan and I look forward to exploring his backlist. This novel first struck me as a murder mystery, but it was less that and more character-driven, which I surprisingly liked. The characters seemed like people I could know: ordinary, working class., and believably flawed, I appreciated the juxtaposition of these ordinary lives with the extraordinary crime of murder and how each person was impacted by it. Also, it stood out to me that the main voice of the story is Marie, the 13 year old sister of the killer. She was neither the victim nor the killer, but her perspective seemed most critical to understanding the story and other characters somehow. She was the most likeable character, and it was heartbreaking to see how the events of the story swept her up and made a lasting impression on her, more than others, it seemed. I appreciated the opportunity to read and listen to this novel, thanks to the ARC and ALC provided by the publisher and Netgalley.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book hooked me from the very beginning. I immediately needed to hear the story of how the sister helped to murder someone. Very complex characters. The story really got to the fact that a tragedy doesn’t just impact one person in the family. Took me a little bit to get used to the writing style and to keep the characters straight.

3.5

Stewart O'Nan is a master. His ability to make the voices of his characters authentic is unmatched. Everything he writes is gold. Ocean State is perfection.

Do not be fooled by the slimness of this novel. It has been pared down to the essentials giving the reader exactly what we need without the breaks a more traditionally written novel gives with sidebars on setting or florid descriptions. And the action starts from the first sentence.

It's a chilling tale of desperation, with all the tension of a thriller, even though you know that a murder occurs an who does it from the first sentence. The two daughters are desperate to get out of their small town life seeing what it's doing to their mother, who has a string of relationships that she keeps hoping will be her ticket out. This leads to Angel doing all she can to keep hold of just the chance to get out or be "something" offered by being the girlfriend of a wealthy HS senior.

Fascinating that an adult man captured the thoughts of teenage girls so well.

This story has a number of elements and the author weaves them together seamlessly. The characters are vibrant and their decisions and actions lead the story.
Many thanks to Grove Atlantic and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Ocean State, by Stewart O’Nan

Short Take: A strangely pointless story.

(*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*)

Greetings duckies, and welcome to the time of year when anything is possible, but summoning the energy to do anything is… not so possible. Besides the obvious weather suckitude, I have torn a small tendon in my foot and it’s wreaking havoc with my plans to leave the couch. So of course, I’m doing loads of reading and venturing into books that I might have otherwise passed by.

Such is the case with Ocean State. I love a good mystery and will excuse a lot of egregiousness if a thriller is twisty enough, as I’m sure you all know by now. But in this one, we’re told in the first paragraph that Birdy, a high school student, was murdered by Angel, another student, so nope, no mystery here.

From there, we see the events leading up to Birdy’s death (and the fallout afterward), as told by Angel’s younger sister Marie and their mother Carol, as well as the victim herself.

Now… this might be a little spoilerish, but I kept waiting for a twist that never came. Although the characters are well-drawn (particularly Marie), the story itself is kind of flat. We know that Birdy was killed, we know that Angel was involved, and within the first couple of chapters, we know why. There are no surprises here.

However, the writing is so good that I didn’t want to leave these women. I felt their pain, and the joy of a large family gathering (and OMG, my nerdlings, the FOOD!!), and the singular confusion that comes from someone you love doing something terrible.

But for all that, it just didn’t feel like there was much of a story there. A lot of emotion, a lot of making me ask myself “how would I feel if”, but other than a few sentences alluding to the actual murder, and some YA-standard high school drama, very little actually happens.

The Nerd’s Rating: THREE HAPPY NEURONS (and some papo secos.)

“When I was in eight grade, my sister helped kill another girl.”

“Ocean State” is based on a murder which happened in the nineties in a small river town, Haddam, Connecticut. Maryann Measles, a thirteen-year-old girl from a broken family, had moved into town and wanted to find a way into the social scene. She decided the way in was to sleep with the boys in the clique which she wanted to join. The girlfriends didn’t appreciate her desperation and convinced the boys to kill her. Four of the boys stuffed her into an oil drum and dumped it into the Connecticut River.

Set in Rhodes Island, the narrator of “Ocean State” is Marie, the killer’s younger sister. Angel is Marie’s role model. She’s beautiful, popular, athletic and confident. Everyone loves her. She is everything Marie feels she is not and may never be.

O’Nan uses the first-person narrative to warm up what turns out to be a very chilling story. The novel is about the ecstasy, misery and wildness of romantic love and what the desire for it can do to people. Desperation stems from Angel, Myles’ long-term girlfriend, that she will never be loved again like she is loved by him, before possessiveness takes over when she realizes he is being unfaithful to her with Birdie, the murder victim.

“Ocean State” is retrospective in that Marie has a story she’s had to carry her whole life. It’s as if she puts the story in front of the reader saying “help me understand this because it has changed my life and I don’t understand everything about it”. Further into the novel it becomes obvious that this is really about how we see ourselves, how we view our personal worth and whether we are worth anything if nobody loves us. These questions then lead to what we will do to be recognized, understood and known. Highly recommended.

A huge thank you to @Netgalley, @GroveAtlantic and Dreamscape Media for this compelling advanced audiobook.

Published by Grove Press on March 15, 2022

Marie Oliviera narrates pieces of Ocean State from an adult perspective as she recounts formative events of her childhood. Her family lived and had generational roots in Rhode Island. When she tells the story, Marie is the only family member who has not fled from the small town where she grew up.

At 13, Marie had a child’s “overdeveloped sense of justice.” She wanted everyone to be happy, “despite our actual lives.” Marie had a reasonably close relationship with her mother Carol (despite Carol’s unsuccessful efforts to curb Marie’s overeating) but Marie wasn’t thrilled about Carol’s drinking or the men she dated. Marie had a slightly better opinion of Russ, who at least spent money on Carol, than she had of Wes, who owned guns and throwing stars and did cocaine. Marie’s father was mostly absent, but that didn’t stop him from getting into a dust-up with one of Carol’s boyfriends. It's that kind of family, which might explain why events unfold as they do.

Marie's narrative revolves around her older sister Angel. From almost the first page, the reader is aware that Angel killed a girl named Birdy Alves. Much of Birdy’s story is told from the perspective of a third person narrator. The first- and third-person narration combines to explain the escalating tension between Birdy and Angel. After about two-thirds of the story has has been told, Birdy disappears. The rest of the story addresses the aftermath of Birdy’s death.

Stewart O’Nan is an adult male, but he crafts a convincing portrayal of the drama that is so often central to teen female lives. Birdy is insecure, demanding, and driven by uncontrollable desires. After dating Hector for some time, she begins fooling around with Angel’s boyfriend, Myles Parrish. Birdy is willing to risk her relationship with Hector, in whom her interest has waned, to satisfy her craving for Myles’ attention. When an incriminating photo of Birdy and Myles appears on social media, Angel realizes that (1) she needs to keep Myles on a much shorter leash and (2) Birdy needs to be punished.

Myles is from a more affluent family and is probably out of Birdy’s league, but the same could be said of his relationship with Angel. He’s cheated on Angel before and apparently finds satisfaction in shagging Birdy. At least, he doesn’t seem capable of choosing between them until Birdy and Angel force the issue. Myles is a typical teenage male who goes along to get along, mindlessly following the directions of whichever girl he happens to be with when she gives him an ultimatum.

Birdy spends much of the novel feeling humiliated as a consequence of her own choices (and of the tendency of teenage girls to shame each other). She gets emotional support from her married sister Josefina and from a clueless mother who means well. As a tale of two similar small town families, Ocean State makes the point that parents have little influence when they take on the impossible challenge of raising a teenage girl.

Ocean State also explores the theme of family secrets. Marie doesn’t want her mother to know about her secret snacking. Marie’s mother doesn’t want Birdy or Angel to know about her overlapping relationships with Russ and Wes. Understandably, Angel doesn’t want Marie or her mother to know about the conflict with Birdy that preceded Birdy’s disappearance. Yet secrets are impossible to keep from teens who relentlessly search bedrooms and eavesdrop on conversations to uncover hidden truths.

O’Nan creates palpable tension at the end of the novel as Angel’s lawyer negotiates her fate. As a teen, Angel is incapable of imagining the future. Any amount of time away from Myles is unthinkable. The idea that Myles might serve more time because he’s a male strikes her as monstrously unfair (which, in fact, it is). Angel’s internal struggle is fascinating because, from a standpoint of morality or practicality, she’s always focused on the wrong thing — a transitory love that adult readers understand is both meaningless and the root cause of her problem.

O’Nan managed the difficult trick of turning a teenage tragedy into a real tragedy — one that an adult can appreciate from an adult perspective while recognizing that the teenage perception of facts is vastly different. He makes the wise choice of all but ignoring the murder. A less mature writer might have sensationalized the story with tabloid details. O’Nan keeps the focus on the characters and how they respond to the drama of their own making. That choice brings literary merit to trashy content.

RECOMMENDED

I must not have read the description of the book very well because this was not the story I was expecting, at all! It was well written but I didn't care for the subject matter. The opening line though was spot on! Really hooks you into wanting to see what happens with the rest of the book.

In a town in Rhode Island, a high school student is murdered. You quickly find out who did it and why. Told in alternating POV’s, we learn about Carol the mother of two daughters; Angel, the murder, and her younger sister Marie.

Marie’s testimony is recounted who explains what unfolded in Autumn of 2009. In a nutshell, Angel and another girl Birdy are in love with the same boy. This book shows what can happen when both girls collide.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was another story where the whole explanation of who did what came from the first page. We worked backwards after
that.

The story of how complicated life can be between a single family of mother and two daughters. The relationships are
difficult. All three are very different personalities and each one is trying to have a "proper" life in the way they
want to.

The mother is a never ending stream of relationships, hoping that the next will be the one. The elder daughter wanting
something more from life other than this small town and the youngest just wanting to be loved and to survive in the
bullying, competitive world they live in.

There are on the sidelines the boys which form part of the teenage triangles. They are not worth fighting over and losing
your entire life over but that is teenage angst and that is what happens. The characters are mostly not likable and at one
point I almost gave up on the story. The 13 year old Marie is the one you empathize with but she is fighting a losing
battle with no one seeing the frightened child she actually is.


Its a compelling story well told.

The first line of the book is a total catch - "When I was in eighth grade my sister helped kill another girl." From there we find out that Angel and Birdy both are in love with the same boy and the rivalry leads to the death of one girl. This is a story about the relationships between teenagers, sisters, and mothers and daughters. I feel like this would appeal to a younger reader almost as a cautionary tale.

This book was really just an ok for me. I am usually extremely drawn to character driven books and really thought it was intriguing knowing what happened at the very end. I felt that this was risky and an interesting choice for an author since it really shows that you know where you are ending up in this case. That being said, I felt that the drama in the book just seemed force and there was really no build up to what has happened other than the one altercation when the other girl finds out her boyfriend is cheating. I think there is so much emotion that is lacking and the book ends up telling you about the emotions that you should be feeling as opposed to really grabbing the reader into the story. I really thought the trial and the criminal elements to the crime just seemed flat. The last part of the book was magical though. I liked that the last member of the family takes back over the story and reflects about the aftermath. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.