First published 2020
The Bride prepares for her wedding when an unusual visitor arrives: a parakeet with cornflower blue lines beneath her eyes and a familiar dubious expression. The bird asks "What is the Internet?" and The Bride recognizes her dead grandmother immediately. The parakeet delivers two pieces of advice: don't get married, and go find your brother. What should be a straightforward week before the altar transforms into a fractured journey as The Bride grapples with her grandmother's warnings. Her path becomes increasingly surreal and unstable, forcing her to excavate long-buried family matters and confront questions about memory, responsibility, and identity. As she searches for her estranged brother, The Bride must decide who she owes what, how much her past should determine her future, and what it means to become her truest self. This strange week pulls her between joy and fear, between honoring old wounds and embracing new possibilities.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, magical-realism, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
240 pages · Hardcover · Farrar, Straus and Giroux