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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Mohrbooks London 2025: SELECTED FICTION, 8 months ago

I AM THE CAGE

Allison Sweet Grant

A coming-of-age story about a young woman running away from herself yet grasping to find a way back that's deeply moving, authentically raw, and humming with the possibility of a new love.
Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Beautiful. Quiet. Isolated. Anonymous. It's all that nineteen-year-old Elisabeth needs, and everything she wants. Cloistered in her tiny cabin, she's determined to be alone, hiding from her memories and making sure that no one can ever hurt her again.

But when a massive snowstorm strikes, plunging the town into darkness, Elisabeth finally allows herself to accept help from her neighbor, Noah, the town's young sheriff. Forced to show him more vulnerability than she ever intended, she realizes she can no longer outrun the scars of her childhood, and facing the darkness might be exactly what she needs to let the light in.

In a searing own-voices story accented by poignant childhood flashbacks and stunning poetry, Allison Sweet Grant's young adult debut is a powerful portrait of a young woman's journey to confront the medical trauma inflicted to "fix" herand heal her heart in the process.

Allison Sweet Grant has been published in the New York Times and the Atlantic. She holds dual master's degrees from the University of Michigan. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, #1 New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant and their children.
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Published 2025-02-18 by Dutton Children's Books

Comments

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Heartfelt, human and truea novel that feels real from the first word to the last. I loved it.

UK: Rock the Boat (One World), Brazil: Editora Globo, Poland: Znak

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A brilliant book about what we surviveand how. Visceral, wrenching, and beautiful, Grant's triumphant novel will stick with you.

An honest and almost unrelentingly bleak look at an underdiscussed source of trauma. Read more...

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A tender, heartfelt story about the wounds childhood trauma can leave on its survivors. The sense of powerlessness and redemption will stay with you.

Allison Sweet Grant is a natural storyteller with the keen eye and ear of a poet. Deftly toggling between past and present, childhood trauma and its painful aftershocks, I Am the Cage is a story of love, resilience, and healing. What a beautiful, moving, and insightful debut.

Nineteen-year-old Elisabeth Amos, who is still navigating complications following a major surgery for fibular short congenital femur and fibular hemimelia at age 11, decides to forgo college. Read more...

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As she tumbles into adulthood in a remote Wisconsin town, 19-year-old Elisabeth can't quite move past a childhood medical trauma.

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