It’s a breathtaking story about contemporary America that will serve as a mirror to some and a window for others, and it will stay with anyone who reads it.

After her mother is detained* by immigration officials, Fabiola Toussaint has to finish her move from Port-au-Prince to Detroit alone. The tough-as-nails cousins and exhausted* aunt who greet her in Michigan bear little resemblance* to the warm family she had dreamed of when she was in Haiti.

Left with a mother-sized hole in her life, Fabiola begins the unsteady process of assimilation*, holding on to her family’s spiritual traditions while navigating the disconnectedness and violence of her new home. A sweet romance and her cousins’ complex support ease the teen into a halfway space between worlds, but her eyes remain on the prize of reuniting with her mother. When Fabiola is asked by the police to inform on her cousin’s volatile* boyfriend in exchange for information about her mother, she must work around the gaps in her understanding to make some explosive decisions.

In this bright, sharp debut, Ibi Zoboi weaves grittiness*, sensitivity, and complexity into every character, but Fabiola’s longing, determination, and strength shine especially brightly.

Zoboi was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and immigrated to the United States when she was 4. She holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she was a recipient of the Norma Fox Mazer Award.(SD-Agencies)