A Cigarette Lit Backwards

 

 I received a copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Title: A Cigarette Lit Backwards

Author: Tea Hacic-Vlahovic

Publisher: The Overlook Press

Release Date: 9.20.22

Publisher’s Summary 

Set in the punk-rock scene of the early 2000s and vibrating with the intense ache of bad choices and deep longing, a needle-sharp portrait of a young woman and how far she’ll go to find acceptance

Kat is dying to be accepted by the North Carolina punks; she is totally desperate to seem cool. At a punk show, she ends up backstage with a rock star and gets noticed by a photojournalist. And then—a dream come true for Kat—her reputation as a groupie icon skyrockets. But to maintain this notoriety, Kat makes a series of devastating choices, and soon enough, she becomes unrecognizable to herself and others.

Tea Hacic-Vlahovic’s A Cigarette Lit Backwards is a sometimes funny, often brutally honest novel about ambition and self-discovery and how a world of glamour and cool exerts its bold and breathless pull. In prose that seduces, glitters, and exhilarates, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic has written a novel that is both a wild party and a somber reckoning, consolidating her status as a thrilling and essential new voice for our time.

My Review

Tea Hacic-Vlahovic transported me back to my own teenage years. Her writing had my memories flooding back, making me groan in despair at the stupid choices I made. I was partying in filthy flophouses and going to concerts just like Kat. I was self-destructing with drugs and terrible boyfriends, trying to figure out why everyone loved the Ashleys of the world. "Ashley always had something cool, funny, or loud to say. Everyone listened. Ashley took up space and demanded attention. We were all stuck on her." Like Kat, I was dreaming of escape and wanting to be absolutely anywhere but where I was. "Daydreams were my specialty. I could walk for hours and not even notice, so long as I had a compelling scene on rotation in my brain. As Blondie said, dreaming is free." Full of great song and cultural references, A Cigarette Lit Backwards is raw, full of angst, and definitely geared toward a demographic of women who were living on the edge in their teenage years.