A CIGARETTE LIT BACKWARDS

Set in the punk-rock scene of the early 2000s and vibrating with the intense ache of bad choices and deep longing, a needle-sharp portrait of a young woman and how far she'll go to find acceptance.

Teenage Kat is dying to be accepted by the NC punks, but as a virgin with nice parents, she struggles to keep up appearances until she ends up backstage at a show with a rockstar. The next morning an online magazine publishes pictures of Kat, deeming her a groupie icon. To maintain this notoriety, Kat makes a series of devastating mistakes. The truth comes out when her rockstar "lover" dishes all in Rolling Stone - he's gay and has never slept with a girl. Kat has already lost most of her friends, and now she's got no shot at redemption. She runs off to New York to find the journalist who started this mess in the first place. This novel unflinchingly examining the length's one will go to in order to be noticed and accepted. Tea Hacic-Vlahovic is a Croatian-American writer who has written for several publications including Vice, Wired Italy, and Wonderland Magazine. Tea's first novel Life of The Party was released by Clash Books in 2020.