Press
Vogue
“A novel built from interlocking stories… In less capable hands, such rapid shifts might have a disorienting effect, but the book spins an entrancing web, the stories channeling the spirit of Mary Gaitskill and subtly building to reveal more and more about the town’s inhabitants.”
Kirkus
“Girls and women inflict damage on each other by being too close and not recognizing their own agency and power, and also because disrupting systems of male privilege is difficult. Grabowski’s exploration of all these ideas makes for a brilliant novel… A smart, propulsive novel attentive to the ways community can fall short.”
The New York Times
“A Greek chorus of 10 women in the small town of Nashquitten, Mass., narrates the lead-up to, and aftermath of, a local teenager’s death. After a young woman mysteriously dies at a house party, the circumstances are unclear: Was it was an accident, suicide or murder? The truth is somewhere in the gray area of Grabowski’s interwoven narrative.”
Publishers Weekly
“Magnetic . . . The ennui of small-town life is perfectly captured in the slice-of-life vignettes, which coalesce into a riveting set of Rashomon-style retellings. Grabowski shows immense promise.”
Oprah Daily
“A young woman dies at a house party, sending ripples out through her community. Each of the 10 chapters in this debut novel is told from the perspective of a different woman in a small coastal town as they reckon with the complexities of their grief, responsibility, and interconnectedness.”
Booklist
“In Grabowski’s craftily constructed and deeply moving debut, ten girls and women in a decaying coastal Massachusetts tourist town respond to the death of a teenager at a house party . . . Grabowski so deftly depicts the web of relations in this oppressively tight-knit community that it becomes evident how life changes for one character reverberate even for those who would seem outside her sphere of influence.”