At sixteen, Eva meets Jamie by chance. She lives in middle-class south Brooklyn; he comes from the super rich of upper Manhattan. She's observant, cautious, often insecure; he's curious, bold, full of mysteries. These two questers are drawn together in a strange and profound friendship, tested by forces larger than themselves. As Eva follows a path of conventional achievement – a prestigious degree, a classic romance, the start of an ambitious career – Jamie seeks out more radical experiments in finding himself.
If Sestanovich’s thematic ambitions are broad — the meaning of life, the coherence of identity, the possibility of principles — her language is cuttingly precise ... While Sestanovich’s reach sometimes exceeds her grasp, it’s reaching that she’s more curious about anyway.
Each of these elements makes sense intellectually — the novel is insistently concerned with different ways of being "of use" to the world — but the proportions are off ... Sestanovich can be wonderfully observant about sexual dynamics, as in an exactingly described round of post-breakup sexting and a surprising election-night hookup; and, as in her stories, her protagonists’ palpable disappointment with the world is endearing, even if its source isn’t always clear. But on the scale of a novel, the author’s hesitancy becomes unsatisfying. There’s a failure to commit to plotlines and characters, a skittish abandonment of deeper engagement at key moments.
Sestanovich is a gifted writer ... A good coming-of-age novel knows that individuals, like their countries, never really stop coming of age. We advance and we regress, sometimes simultaneously. But there is a power in our own inherent curiosity, Sestanovich seems to say. The insistence on continuing to ask questions.
