The Foreigner

By Meg Castaldo and Meg Castlado

In a daring, first novel of romance and taut suspense, Meg Castaldo brings to life the weirdness and wonders of Manhattan through the eyes of a transplanted Californian twenty-something.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743412648
• ISBN13: 9780743412643
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: MTV
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Best MTV Book In The Last Year

In the largely uneven field of MTV Books (Fake Liar Cheat, Perks,F-Up: Great! Dreamworld, Brave New Girl, Pieces: Awful)The Foreigner is a return to the good. While not as funny as Fake Liar Cheat, not as moving as Perks or as f'd up as the F-Up, the Foreigner is a delicious little book about life that is missing the pseudo angst of Brave New Girl & Pieces. A quality read and a good five hours of my life.

Easy, enjoyable read

A friend recommended The Foreigner to me and I found it to be not only an easy read, but a page turner. The author weaved a tale that had me wondering how it would all come together. And it did with a believable twist. The characters were described in such a way that you felt you knew them. My only complaint was I had trouble putting it down and stayed up too late reading. A very good book and I look forward to reading more by Ms. Castaldo.

A remarkable, edgey debut novel

The Foreigner, by Meg Castaldo, is beautifully controlled, auspicious debut by a young writer who has her fingers on the pulse of contemporary urban life. Castaldo's characters are finely drawnly, believeable and yet maintain an air of mystery. Despite the fact that the plot-involving-a-murder is thrilleresque, there is something far greater going on beneath the polished veneer of this fast-paced narrative: a canny intelligence compelled by the nuances of both human behavior and the manners of people living on the edge. Castaldo is a remarkably gifted writer. She has the requisite story-telling instincts of a novelist, but she also had a deep understanding-- Jamesian in scope -- of the people she invents. She's just cutting her teeth here in The Foreigner. I'm sure there are far greater things to come.

A fantastic work

At twenty-eight, Alex Orlando feels she is living proof of inertia, as she seems to be in a state of perpetual rest. Following college, a series of depressing jobs and Europe, Alex feels parental pressure in Sacramento to get on with her life. She escapes when her Uncle Anthony Carmine Orlando asks her to house sit his Manhattan apartment while he does his annual pilgrimage to his Holy Land, Puerto Rico. Uncle Carmi warns his niece that being a foreigner on this crazy island is dangerous and gives her a list of taboos that the natives know to avoid. Priority one is to avoid the neighbor, Christian THE FOREIGNER. Within seventy-two hours, Alex has checked off everything on Carmi's list having been there and done it, but that has led her to her new excitement, as an amateur sleuth trying to solve the murder of THE FOREIGNER next door. This novel is a wild ride around Manhattan that will please the audience with its hip ironic look at "natives and foreigners". The humorous story line focuses on the antics of Alex, a disenchanted youth, but is fun because the key players seem genuine. Everyone has a relative who has warned him or her in a Reefer Madness type of way. Everyone also learned quickly to use that relative's "list" as a fun guide. That is the premise behind the Carmi-Alex relationship that propels the California foreigner to step into one incident after another until the heroine plunges deep into a who-done-it. This fabulous debut requires Meg Castaldo to provide more novels like this New York tale.Harriet Klausner

amazing debut

I was totally blown by this book! It's a great story, with great characters. A murder mystery that's impossible to put down. The perfect beach read. It would make a great movie, too! This is the author's first book, and I hope she'll write many more--i'd surely by them.