Susan the Librarian

The publisher’s summary

A captivating, heartrending novel about a Korean American teen navigating grief and first love who agrees to accept money from her estranged father in exchange for letting him get to know her—for fans of Nina LaCour, Kathleen Glasgow, and All My Rage.

Each night, Winter Moon counts her earnings dreaming of escape. Once she’s saved enough, she and her grandmother can finally take flight and disappear. But when her spiteful mother steals her money and blows through it all in one day, Winter is forced to turn to her estranged father, who recently reappeared in her life after being absent for more than a decade. They agree upon a simple contract: she spends time with him in exchange for payment.

It’s not easy reconciling the past and the present, though, and when she’s struck with a sudden loss, Winter flounders in grief and rage. The only person offering a hand is Joon, the new boy at school who sees Winter when no one else does.

When Winter discovers a secret her father has been keeping from her, things get even more complicated. As she navigates grief, first love, and forgiveness, Winter begins to forge connections, new and old, that make her question everything: her future, her conviction to disappear, and what it really means to be family. Winter knows that broken things can never be fixed, but can they come back together in a different way?

My recommendation

This novel is exquisite. The short chapters make it read like a verse novel while the prose perfectly balances lyricism with a sharp edge. At the start of the novel, the protagonist’s trauma has left her so prickly as to be unlikable, and her transformation unfolds so gradually and authentically that by the end she is almost unrecognizable to who she was at the start. I do not have the words to heap enough praise onto this stunning debut novel. It is a shimmering work of art that you must read yourself to appreciate. Congratulations to Joanne Yi on her debut!