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by: Chandra Prasad
List Price: $23.00Amazon.com's Price: $17.94 You Save: $5.06 (22%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780743297820
ISBN: 0743297822
Label: Atria
Manufacturer: Atria
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: June 19, 2007
Publisher: Atria
Sales Rank: 743194
Studio: Atria
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Adele Pietra has heard her mother say that her destiny is carved in the same brilliantly hued granite her father and brother cleave from the Stony Creek mine: she is to marry a quarryman. But when Adele's brother, Charles, dies in a mining accident, Adele sees the chance to change her life. Enrolling at Yale as Charles, Adele assumes his identity -- and gender -- as a way to leave behind her mother's expectations and the limitations of her provincial Connecticut town.
To her own surprise, hair chopped and chest bound, Adele falls in naturally with a lively crew of undergraduates: the Jewish Harry Persky with his slick Manhattan know-how, the quiet and mysterious legacy student Phineas, and the lanky, charismatic Wick. And in many ways, Adele faces her freshman year at Yale as would any undergraduate boy: she dreads invasive PE examinations and looks forward to dances, experiments with cigarettes and reads the classics. Through her work with a questionable eugenics professor and her friendship with a local Italian family, Adele confronts her class and ethnicity as never before, all the while fearing that both her crush on Wick and her mother's well-meaning interventions will put an end to her delicate masquerade.
One part social history, one part comingof-age tale, On Borrowed Wings is an impeccably researched first novel that transports us to 1930s Yale, showing us around through the eyes of an unlikely, appealing female narrator.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - I couldn't put it down!
From the moment I first picked up this book, I had the hardest time putting it down. So many times I thought I'd read a couple of pages but then I would still be reading a couple of hours later. Chandra Prasad's On Borrowed Wings is one of the best books I've read in a very long time. I loved Adele, the main character who attends Yale disguised as her deceased brother. From making friends, giving reading lessons in her very little free time, and defining herself in an all male ivy league university, ... Read More
Rating: - Courtesy of Teens Read Too
The year is 1936. In the small town of Stony Creek there lives a family of four. There is the mother, a washer woman who used to be a privileged daughter of a professor until she married the father, an Italian quarry man. They had two children, a boy, Charles, and a daughter, Adele.
Charles is the apple of his mother's eye and is being groomed to go to Yale on scholarship. Adele is her father's favorite and her mom is preparing her to be the wife of a quarry man and a laundress. The problem ... Read More
Rating: - 2007 Most Favorite Book
Have you ever fallen in love with a book so deeply that you wanted to keep it and read it again and again? Maybe this is a normal occurrence for you, not so for me. I am a love `em and leave `em reader. Once the last page is read, I am on to my next conquest. That was until I read "On Borrowed Wings".
This book moved me beyond words. I'll admit, I was a bit surprised. The book is unpretentious. But when you read the pages, this matches to perfection with the main character, Adele Pierta.
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Rating: - Fabulous!
What a fabulous book! I was very enraptured with Adele Pietra's story. She was a very likable and believable character and Ms. Prasad drew you into her psyche very easily. You were always left wondering what would happen next and how Adele would handle the next situation. It was definitley a page turner! I was left wanting a sequel!
Rating: - a breath of fresh air
maybe it's just me, but whenever i walk into a bookstore lately, it seems like the majority of female authors are either rehashing history (i.e.The Other Boleyn Girl) or wallowing in crass 21st-century consumerism (i.e. Shoe Addicts Anonymous). how refreshing, then, to read "on borrowed wings." chandra prasad uses a vivid historical setting to tell a story that is fundamentally unique, despite the long literary tradition of gender-swapping tales; she creates characters and moments that will continue to live in your ... Read More
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