First published 2017
Ariel has spent seventeen years moving from apartment to apartment with her dad. Her mother vanished when she was a baby, or so Dad always said. Home means wherever the two of them happen to be. Now Ariel craves stability. She wants to stay in one place, attend the same school, maybe explore her feelings for Monica and Gabe. Then her mother appears without warning. She brings shocking news: Ariel's father didn't rescue her from an abandoning mother. He stole her. Meanwhile, Maya has escaped her abusive mother only to find herself pregnant and alone with an older man she thought she could trust. Her isolation deepens as her situation grows more complex. When these two stories intersect, Ariel must decide what to believe. Can she trust the father who raised her, or the mother she was taught to fear? Hopkins tells both stories in verse and prose, following Ariel's search for truth and Maya's struggle for redemption.
Genres: fiction, contemporary, young-adult, lgbt, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
608 pages · Hardcover · Margaret K. McElderry Books
Content warnings: abuse, mental-illness