Good Girl - A Novel

An exhilarating debut novel (R.O. Kwon, The New York Times Book Review) about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of self-discovery a portrait of the artist as a young woman set in a Berlin that can t escape its history

A girl can get in almost anywhere, even if she can t get out.

A no-bullsh_t, must-read debut. Kaveh Akbar
Kaleidoscopic, full of style and soul. Raven Leilani
Aber writes with . . . masterful precision. Leila Lalami, The Atlantic

"Once in a blue moon a debut novel comes along, announcing a voice quite unlike any other, with a layered story and sentences that crackle and pop, begging to be read aloud. Aria Aber s splendid Good Girl introduces just such a voice . . . Aber, an award-winning poet, strikes gold here, much like Kaveh Akbar did in last year s acclaimed Martyr!" Los Angeles Times

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN S PRIZE FOR FICTION

In Berlin s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses st ill 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.

Rezension:

A stunning coming-of-age story . . . a remarkable achievement. Publishers Weekly, starred review

This book made me feel alive. Ay egül Sava , The Millions

I disappeared into the many overlapping and colliding worlds of this book and emerged with a glistening, vibrating, beautifully exhausted heart. . . . I loved this book. Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters

Aber s ear is so remarkably good you hardly even notice she s building this great symphony of textures, mosaics within mosaics. Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!

Rarely have the wildness and bewilderment of youth been conveyed with such richly textured heat. Garth Greenwell, author of Small Rain

Good Girl charts with more precision and poetry than any novel I know the heavy inheritance that children of immigrants carry. It is stunning, suspenseful, boldly defiant, and masterfully crafted; I only put this novel down to marvel at its prose. Fatima Farheen Mirza, author of A Place for Us

In Good Girl, pleasure is textured, surprising, and treated with utter seriousness. Raven Leilani, author of Luster

Aria Aber s debut is a novel to be transported and moved by, full as it is of many charms, from its jeweled prose to its evocations of history-haunted Berlin to its portrait of a young Muslim artist finding her way. Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different

A haunting exploration of identity and desire, and a testament to Aber s immense storytelling talent, ensuring Good Girl remains as remarkable and timeless as the very nature of fiction itself. Morgan Talty, author of Fire Exit

A heartbreaking song of youth and desire and violence and history and the unbearable solitude of displacement. Jamil Jan Kochai, author of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories

She explores the intergenerational sting of what it means to be a good girl culturally, sexually, and socially. Her masterful prose guides the reader down the back alleys of Berlin, inviting the reader into a world all of her own making. Marlowe Granados, filmmaker and author of Happy Hour