Starting Out: A Novel

“She thought, maybe later you’ll remember this and think when you were young, you were carefree, everything was possible, but that’s not what it was actually like.”

From the bestselling, Booker Prize–shortlisted author of The Rest of Our Lives comes a novel about beginnings: the stories we tell ourselves about how we’re supposed to grow up, and what happens when we discover they might not be true.

Lisa is a bookish girl. Growing up in Austin, she thinks life will be like it is in the pages ...