From "a writer at the top of her game" (The New York Times) comes a
bighearted and sharply funny debut novel about two estranged sisters and
the crossroads they face after becoming unexpectedly pregnant at the
same time.
Two years after the death of their mother, Jada and Maddy Battle both
navigate unplanned pregnancies. Jada, a thirty-one-year-old psychology
PhD student living in Pittsburgh, quietly obtains an abortion without
telling her husband, but the secret causes turmoil in her already shaky
marriage. Back home in rural Pennsylvania, nineteen-year-old Maddy, who
spends her time caring for birds at a wildlife rehabilitation center, is
paid off by the man who got her pregnant to get an abortion. But an
unsettling visit to a crisis pregnancy center adds to her doubts about
whether to go through with it.
Although Maddy still hasn't forgiven Jada for a terrible betrayal, she
goes to her for support, only to discover the cracks in the façade of
her sister's seemingly perfect life. As their past resentments boil
over, the sisters must navigate the consequences of their choices and
determine how best to care for themselves and each other.
With luminous prose and laser-sharp psychological insight, How to Care
for a Human Girl is a compassionate and unforgettable examination of
the complexities of choice, the special intimacy of sisterhood, and the
bizarre ways our heated political moment manifests in daily life.
