Treasure Island!!! - by Sara Levine (Paperback)

About the Book

After a college graduate with a history of hapless jobs reads Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Treasure Island," she is dumbstruck by the timid design of her life. Convinced that Stevenson's book is cosmically intended for her, she redesigns her life according to its core values: boldness, resolution, independence, and horn-blowing.

Book Synopsis

A young slacker decides to live her life according to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure: "A rollicking tale, shameless, funny and intelligent" (The New York Times).

When a college graduate with a history of hapless jobs (ice cream scooper, gift wrapper, laziest ever part-time clerk at The Pet Library) reads Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, she is dumbstruck by the timid design of her life. When had she ever dreamed a scheme? When had she ever done a foolish, overbold act? When had she ever, like Jim Hawkins, broken from her friends, raced for the beach, stolen a boat, killed a man, and eliminated an obstacle that stood in the way of her getting a hunk of gold?
Convinced that Stevenson's book is cosmically intended for her, she redesigns her life according to its Core Values: boldness, resolution, independence, and horn-blowing. Accompanied by her mother, her sister, and a hostile Amazon parrot that refuses to follow the script, our heroine embarks on a domestic adventure more frightening than anything she'd originally planned. Treasure Island!!! is the story of a ferocious obsession, told by an original voice--"insane, hilarious, and irreverent" (Alice Sebold).

"Highly original . . . will keep you entertained in spite of (or more accurately, because of) its toxic narrator."--Library Journal

"A hoot."--Kirkus Reviews

Review Quotes

A Top 10 Book of the 21st Century according to Paul Tremblay, author of Horror Movie

"Short and absolutely delightful."--Electric Literature

"Throw yourself headlong into the tornado of chaos that is the protagonist of Sara Levine's Treasure Island!!! -- especially if you enjoyed the television program Fleabag."--Molly Young, Vulture

"There is no apology or moral to the story, and that makes an already incisive and intelligent novel even more compelling."--Roxane Gay

"Levine manages to get serious by retaining a sense of humour."--Matthew Bevis, London Review of Books

"Darkly funny."--Travel and Leisure

"Wickedly fun."--The Millions

About the Author

Sara Levine teaches at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her stories have appeared in The Iowa Review, Nerve, Conjunctions, Necessary Fiction, Sonora Review, and other magazines. She won a 2008 Bridport Prize for Fiction, a Special Mention in The Pushcart Anthology, and three citations in The Best American Essays. Her writing has been anthologized in Best of Fence: The First Nine Years and The Touchstone Anthology of Creative Nonfiction: 1970 to the Present.