Good Girl: A Novel [Paperback]

“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.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • FINALIST FOR THE EDMUND WHITE AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION AND THE VERMONT BOOK AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD AND THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • A BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, Elle, Electric Lit, The Skinny

“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

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 disappol#8