---
product_id: 3704901
title: "In Zanesville: A Novel"
price: "€ 92.69"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.com.cy/products/3704901-in-zanesville-a-novel
store_origin: CY
region: Cyprus
---

# In Zanesville: A Novel

**Price:** € 92.69
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** In Zanesville: A Novel
- **How much does it cost?** € 92.69 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.cy](https://www.desertcart.com.cy/products/3704901-in-zanesville-a-novel)

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## Description

The fourteen-year-old narrator of IN ZANESVILLE is a late bloomer. She flies under the radar-a sidekick, a marching band dropout, a disastrous babysitter, the kind of girl whose Eureka moment is the discovery that "fudge" can't be said with an English accent. Luckily, she has a best friend with whom she shares the everyday adventures of a 1970s American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed, and character is forged. In time, their friendship is tested--by their families' claims on them, by a clique of popular girls who stumble upon them, and by the first, startling, subversive intimations of womanhood. With dry wit and piercing observation, Jo Ann Beard shows us that in the seemingly quiet streets of America's innumerable Zanesvilles is a world of wonders, and that within the souls of the overlooked often burns something radiant.

Review: a quietly beautiful novel about the hard work of adolescence - This novel depicts a small but significant shift: from the powerlessness of childhood toward the moment when power and decision-making and volition suddenly seem to come from the self, not from parents and teachers. The narrator's wry, eccentric observations are a constant delight, and the depiction of the narrator's mother is deeply familiar to me--a Midwestern woman who expects life to be filled with sacrifce, whose love is mixed with exasperation. I also loved the depiction of small town social class distinctions. In the wide world, a bunch of schoolgirls from Zanesville, Illinois have more in common than not. But within Zanesville the demarcations of privilege (or its lack) stand out: whose house is bigger and cleaner; whose father is more sober; whose clothes are new or culled from a box of cast-offs. If you loved Jo Ann Beard's *The Boys of my Youth,* and I did, reading this novel will make you want to reread *The Boys of my Youth,* which is one of my 10 favorite books of the last 50 years. And so I ordered it (I always seem to loan it out and never get it back) and reread it too. I am in awe of Jo Ann Beard's talent. Her books are smart, funny, companionable, her characters as recognizable as the people who inhabited my childhood and yet full of surprise.
Review: Quick summer read! - It was very well written and nostalgic, and the characters are very relateable. It was quirky and funny and sweet. I was kind of sorry it ended where it did, and wished it had gone on longer. It was hard to let these characters go...I wanted to know what they were going to do next. This is a really cool, summer, beach, quick read!

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #3,418 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books) #14,565 in Literary Fiction (Books) #64,635 in American Literature (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.0 out of 5 stars 245 Reviews |

## Images

![In Zanesville: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51cm4hXKHML.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ a quietly beautiful novel about the hard work of adolescence
*by A***E on July 28, 2011*

This novel depicts a small but significant shift: from the powerlessness of childhood toward the moment when power and decision-making and volition suddenly seem to come from the self, not from parents and teachers. The narrator's wry, eccentric observations are a constant delight, and the depiction of the narrator's mother is deeply familiar to me--a Midwestern woman who expects life to be filled with sacrifce, whose love is mixed with exasperation. I also loved the depiction of small town social class distinctions. In the wide world, a bunch of schoolgirls from Zanesville, Illinois have more in common than not. But within Zanesville the demarcations of privilege (or its lack) stand out: whose house is bigger and cleaner; whose father is more sober; whose clothes are new or culled from a box of cast-offs. If you loved Jo Ann Beard's *The Boys of my Youth,* and I did, reading this novel will make you want to reread *The Boys of my Youth,* which is one of my 10 favorite books of the last 50 years. And so I ordered it (I always seem to loan it out and never get it back) and reread it too. I am in awe of Jo Ann Beard's talent. Her books are smart, funny, companionable, her characters as recognizable as the people who inhabited my childhood and yet full of surprise.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Quick summer read!
*by L***. on July 9, 2013*

It was very well written and nostalgic, and the characters are very relateable. It was quirky and funny and sweet. I was kind of sorry it ended where it did, and wished it had gone on longer. It was hard to let these characters go...I wanted to know what they were going to do next. This is a really cool, summer, beach, quick read!

### ⭐⭐⭐ Nothing much happened
*by J***N on August 12, 2023*

I read it pretty quickly because it describes the early 1970’s, my teen years. It’s well written and fairly enjoyable, but there’s no climax: to put it in literary terms, no rise in plot action that leads to a solution to the central problem. She and her best friend had a tiff that was resolved, but that wasn’t enough.

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*Product available on Desertcart Cyprus*
*Store origin: CY*
*Last updated: 2026-08-25*