About this item
For fans of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and Judy Gregerson's Bad Girls Club, this is a deeply moving and exquisite novel about a girl traumatized by her mother's serious mental illness, and the steps she takes to save her from destruction.Bright lights, big trouble. When Van arrives in Las Vegas at the upscale Silver Saddle casino with her mother - a brilliant businesswoman with fragile mental health - she learns that her mother assigned her a college student, Alex, to "babysit" her. Van is used to having to land on her feet - her mother and surrogate grandmother move from city to city all the time like corporate nomads, but she is not thrilled to have someone watching her now. When Alex introduces Van, a talented musician, to an all-girl Sleater-Kinney-style band, she finally has a chance to let her guitar skills shine.
About the Author
Natalka Burian is the co-owner of two bars, Elsa and Ramona, as well as the co-founder of The Freya Project, a non-profit reading series that supports community-based activism and annually awards five unrestricted grants to further the work of women and non-binary writers. She is the author of Welcome to the Slipstream, a young adult book, and the cocktail cookbook, A Woman's Drink. Her novel, Daughters of the Wild, will be out this September with Park Row. Natalka, her bars and books have been featured in The New Yorker, Elle, Vogue, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She grew up on a farm, but now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
