EITHER THE BEGINNING OR THE END WORLD

This stunning novel is a raw exploration of longing, trauma, and love.

This tale of first love features Sofie, the 16-year-old daughter of a Cambodian immigrant and a Scottish fisherman, and a young army medic back from Afghanistan, exploring themes of intergenerational trauma and the immigrant experience. "I shouldn't see him," I tell Rosa. She watches me, excited. She's the party girl. She calls me driven. "I have to see him," I say. "Are you looking for advice?" she asks. "No." For sixteen years, it's been just Sofie and her rugged fisherman father. Sofie keeps the books for her dad's business, works in their coastal New Hampshire town, runs cross-country, and daydreams with her friend Rosa. Then she meets Luke, and the pull is as strong as the currents of the rushing Piscataqua River. But Luke-an Army medic back from Afghanistan-is haunted by the ghosts of war. Knowing this, Sofie's dad orders her to stay away; it may be the first time she has ever disobeyed him. I became a tall Scottish-American girl-my father's side-who chanced to have Cambodian eyes. When her father decides to take his boat south to find a better winter catch, he asks Sofie's estranged mother and grandmother to stay with her. Sofie is furious, bitter at her mother's absence and unreliability. Now she's forced to face her Cambodian roots through her grandmother's stories of the war-torn countryside, the ruthless Khmer Rouge, and the hardships of immigrant life-as well as heartbreaking acts of human devotion. As Luke and Sofie navigate a forbidden landscape, they discover they both have their secrets, their scars, their ghosts, their wars. Together, they are dangerous. Together, they need to choose if they're at the beginning or the end.