The Award Tally
Good Girl cover

Good Girl

Aria Aber

Good Girl

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Good Girl was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. In Berlin's artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist. Then in the haze of Berlin's legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe's controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany—and Nila's family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be? A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.

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Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Year
2025
ISBN-13
9780593731123
Genre
FictionYoung Adult
Topics
Coming of ageIdentity and belongingImmigrant family dynamics

Awards