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Marcella Cox narrates this striking debut with hushed intensity. Mickey is a Black beauty writer whose sudden layoff sends her spiraling into despair. Demoralized and exhausted by the racism she has experienced in the cutthroat world of fashion writing in New York and struggling to hold on to her self-worth, she abruptly leaves her girlfriend and heads home to suburban Maryland, where she reconnects with an old flame. Cox does a great job capturing Mickey's conflicting emotions. She smoothly incorporates dozens of text messages into her performance and delivers zingy one-liners and emotional monologues with equal skill. This is a sharp, funny, brutally honest novel about being young, going home, and figuring out what really matters. L.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2023]