Raver Girl

A PopSugar Best New Books of 2021 Selection


Weed inspires her. Acid shows her another dimension. Ecstasy releases
her. Nitrous fills her with bliss. Cocaine makes her fabulous. Mushrooms
make everything magical. Special K numbs her. Crystal meth makes her
mean. Sixteen-year-old Samantha, raver extraordinaire, puts the “high”
in high school.


A ’90s time capsule buried inside a coming-of-age memoir set against the
neon backdrop of the San Francisco Bay Area's rave scene, Raver Girl
chronicles Samantha’s double life as she teeters between hedonism and
sobriety, chaos and calm, all while sneaking under the radar of her
entrepreneur father—a man who happened to drop acid with LSD impresario
Owsley Stanley in the ’60s.


Samantha keeps a list of every rave she goes to—a total of 104 over four
years. During that time, what started as trippy fun morphs into a
self-destructive roller coaster ride. Samantha opens the doors of her
mind, but she's left with traumas her acid-fried brain won't let her
escape; and when meth becomes her drug of choice, things get
progressively darker. Through euphoric highs and dangerous lows,
Samantha discovers she’s someone who lives life to the fullest and
learns best through alternative experience rather than mainstream
ideals. She’s a creative whose mind is limitless, whose quirks are
charms, whose passion is inspirational. She’s an independent woman whose
inner strength is rooted in unwavering family ties. And if she can
survive high school, she just might be okay.