Good Girl

Reviews

“[An] exhilarating debut novel . . . Aber’s first book was a collection of poetry [Hard Damage]; she has published astonishing poems I’ve read dozens of times. It’s thrilling to see her turn major poetic gifts toward the sweep of this Künstlerroman . . . While reading Good Girl, I thought of James Baldwin, writing in a letter that ‘the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.’ With her novel, Aber has made the world more spacious: More people will find a place to fit.”—R. O. Kwon, The New York Times Book Review

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

“Aber’s first book, the poetry collection Hard Damage, earned her literary acclaim and the 2020 Whiting Award. Her debut novel, Good Girl, is bound to bring her the sort of broad public attention fans of her work have long known she deserved.”—Vulture

“This book made me feel alive.”—Ayşegül Savaş, The Millions

“Aria Aber is a poet who veers into that specifically ambiguous territory of ‘famous poet’, but even if you haven’t yet heard of her, you’re going to know her from her fiction debut, Good Girl. . . . I love reading a poet’s fiction: every line is intentional and purposeful, gleaming with sharp, incisive meaning, while taking you on the journey of their narrator’s life, and this one is no different. One gets to have it all in such a case: at the line level, the plot level, and the novel as a whole, it’s a marvel.”—Literary Hub

“A striking debut.”—Financial Times

“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

“A novel to be transported and moved by . . . [a] 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, 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.”—Marlowe Granados, filmmaker and author of Happy Hour Expand reviews