Wholesale Cartographers, The : Amy Zhang

Amy Zhang Paperback YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Social Themes / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance * Struggling to balance the expectations of her immigrant mother with her deep ambivalence about her own place in the world, seventeen-year-old Ocean Sun takes her savings and goes off the grid. In a starred review, Booklist called The Cartographers an “arresting, heartbreaking, and meditative novel.” A haunting and romantic novel about family, friendship, physics, and love, from the acclaimed author of Falling into Place and This Is Where the World Ends. Seventeen-year-old Ocean Sun, the daughter of a single mom who moved from China to the American Midwest while pregnant with Ocean, has always felt enormous pressure to succeed. After struggling with depression and attempting suicide during her senior year in high school, Ocean moves to New York City, where she has been accepted at a prestigious university, to start fresh. But because she feels so emotionally raw and unmoored (and uncertain about what is real and what is not), she decides to defer and live off her savings until she can get herself together. She also decides not to tell her mother (whom she loves very much but doesn’t want to disappoint) that she is deferring—at least until she absolutely must.In New York, Ocean moves into an apartment with Georgie and Tashya, two random girls who soon become friends, and gets a job tutoring. She also meets a boy—Constantine Brave (a name that makes her laugh)—late one night on the subway. Constant is a fellow student and a graffiti artist, and Constant and Ocean start corresponding via a Google doc—they discuss physics, philosophy, art, literature, and love. Everything falls apart, though, when Ocean goes home for Thanksgiving, Constant reveals his true character, Georgie and Tashya break up, and the police get involved.Ocean, Constant, Georgie, and Tashya are all cartographers—mapping out their futures, their dreams, and their paths toward adulthood in this literary, stunning, and heartbreaking novel about finding the strength to control your own destiny.