First published 2025
Vera Bradford-Shmulkin writes down new vocabulary words and dreams of three things: finding a friend at school, keeping her parents together, and meeting her birth mother. The ten-year-old navigates her complicated family as America transforms around them. Her father struggles as a cash-poor editor whose Russian background suddenly matters in shifting geopolitics. Anne Mom, her progressive Boston blue blood stepmother, fights to hold their household together on little money. Dylan, her half-brother, benefits from his blond hair and Mayflower ancestry in the new political climate. Vera herself is half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly observant. She watches the adults around her bend under pressure while she searches for her identity. Her birth mother holds secrets about who Vera really is. The family loves each other deeply, but external forces threaten to pull them apart. Through Vera's clear eyes, the story captures both the sharp humor and deep pain of a modern American family trying to survive together.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: humorous, intimate, introspective, poignant, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, family-secrets, found-family, identity-discovery
Setting: Boston, America
Period: 21st century, contemporary
256 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: racism