Brooklyn Thomas Isn't Here
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Summer is off to a bad start and getting worse. Brooklyn Thomas is pretty sure she’s mostly dead. She can’t feel her heart beat and she’s disappearing: her reflection keeps vanishing from mirrors. No one else seems to notice. Not her coworkers at the artisanal doughnut shop she works at after failing at her high-paying marketing job. Not her crush, whom she keeps humiliating herself in front of. Not her parents, whose basement suite she’s stuck living in now that she can’t afford rent anymore. To top it all off, she’s hallucinating stars from all her favorite TV shows who want Brooklyn to pull herself together and face the truth about what happened to her career, her best friend, and her relationship with her brother.
As her past collides with her present in painful and unexpected ways, Brooklyn must decide if she’s strong enough to confront what haunts her and get a second chance at a real life—before mostly dead turns into actually dead.
Brooklyn Thomas Isn’t Here explores how women contort and minimize themselves to fit the roles society and family offer them, and the serious price they pay for doing so.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A depressed 29-year-old starts to physically disappear in Vail's witty and poignant debut. After losing her job as the communications director of a Vancouver marketing firm, Brooklyn moves into her parents' basement and begins pulling shifts at an artisanal doughnut shop. Then she learns that her best friend, international aid worker Penny Parker, has vanished while working in Syria. As if that weren't enough, Brooklyn is also back in the orbit of her physically abusive brother; her mom ignores all evidence of her brother's abuse; and she's developed a crush on a doughnut shop regular who already has a girlfriend. Before long, Brooklyn feels her heartbeat slowing down and notices that her reflection isn't showing up in mirrors. Worried that she might be dying, Brooklyn is visited by the ghost of actor Emaleigh Porter, who starred in some of her favorite childhood TV shows. Emaleigh's wisdom, coupled with Brooklyn's fitful pursuit of her doughnut shop regular, helps bring her back to life. Vail's subtle touches of magical realism enrich her insights about the difficulties of young womanhood without overwhelming them. This has charm to spare.
