Showing results by author "Donna Freitas" in All Categories

The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano follows the butterfly effect of one life-defining choice - nine times over. Winding through all the paths and decisions that shape a life, it cuts to the heart of what it means to be a woman. Every expectation, every choice, every path, every outcome - every piece of oneself that’s lost and found along the way.

Donna Freitas has lived two lives. In one life, she is a well-published author and respected scholar who has traveled around the country speaking about Title IX, consent, religion, and sex on college campuses. In the other, she is a victim, a woman who suffered and suffers still because she was stalked by her graduate professor for more than two years.

In The End of Sex, Donna Freitas draws on her own extensive research to reveal what young men and women really want when it comes to sex and romance. Surveying thousands of college students and conducting extensive one-on-one interviews at religious, secular public, and secular private schools, Freitas discovered that many students are deeply unhappy with hookup culture. Meaningless hookups have led them to associate sexuality with ambivalence, boredom, isolation, and loneliness, yet they tend to accept hooking up as an unavoidable part of college life.

Raised Catholic, she sang songs about Jesus as a child and lived in a house where nuns and priests were regular guests, yet she found herself questioning the faith of her family, examining the reasons none of it added up, and distancing herself from the God of Christianity. Despite her questions—or perhaps because of them—she made a career out of trying to understand God, pursuing a PhD in religion. But even as she taught college students about mystics, theologians, and others who wrestled with God, she was never able to embrace a faith of her own.

Joey Jordan loves gymnastics: the thrill of performing a backflip on the beam, the cheers of the audience when she sticks a landing. But even with all her talent and style, she's never quite made it to that gold medal stand. Now big changes shake up Joey's life in and out of the gym. Joey wants to break out some daring new beam and floor routines - but she'll have to defy her strict coach to do it. Her best friend, Alex, is thinking about quitting gymnastics for good. And an old friend named Tanner just moved back to town, and he's suddenly gotten very, very cute.

In Barcelona, the beach is beautiful, the tapas are delicious, and the boys are plentiful. Good thing, too, because Stefi’s nursing a broken heart after a disastrous breakup and is excited to reinvent herself, practice her Catalan language skills, and take baking classes at the legendary culinary institute, all in a magical city where no one knows her.

For more than two years, Donna Freitas’s graduate school mentor, a priest and celebrated scholar, stalked her, forever changing her life. In her 2019 account Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention, she recreated, in novelistic detail, the story of being traumatized by her professor’s obsession with her, of how he used his power to try to rob her of her own. 

When Rose’s mom dies, she leaves behind a brown paper bag labeled Rose’s Survival Kit. Inside the bag, Rose findsan iPod, with a to-be-determined playlist; a picture of peonies, for growing; acrystal heart, for loving; apaper star, for making a wish; and a paper kite, for letting go.As Rose ponders the meaning of each item, she finds herself returning again and again to an unexpected source of comfort. Will is her family’s gardener, the school hockey star, and the only person who really understands what she’s going through. Can loss lead to love?

Olivia Peters is over the moon when her literary idol, the celebrated novelist and much-adored local priest Mark D. Brendan, offers to become her personal writing mentor. But when Father Mark’s enthusiasm for Olivia’s prose develops into something more, Olivia’s emotions quickly shift from wonder to confusion to despair. Exactly what game is Father Mark playing, and how on earth can she get out of it?

Für Rose Napolitano, erfolgreiche Professorin, war ein Kind nie Teil ihres Lebensplans. Ihr Ehemann Luke dagegen sieht es anders. Um die Chancen auf eine Schwangerschaft zu erhöhen, soll sie daher Vitamintabletten nehmen. Es kommt zum Streit, am Ende ist ihre Ehe ein Scherbenhaufen. Der gleiche Morgen, ein anderes Leben: Wieder gibt es Streit um die Vitamine. Doch dieses Mal nimmt die Auseinandersetzung einen anderen Verlauf – und damit auch die Zukunft von Rose.