Skye papers

In the 1990s, a Black college student escapes the suffocating confines of suburbia to tumble headfirst into life on the outer edges of urban society. This debut novel will shift the ground beneath your feet. When aspiring poet Skye drops out of her first year of college in Chicago to look for Scottie, a mysterious young man she'd met on a Greyhound bus, what follows is an intense, questioning, drug-addled adventure. Skye heads to Manhattan and shows up at the address Scottie had given her, where she meets an older woman named Pieces. She wakes up alone the next day with a chunk of her memory missing, then finds a note from Pieces reminding her that she'd promised to meet her and Scottie in London. "DON'T FORGET," it said. Stepping into Pieces' old hostessing job long enough to buy her ticket, she hops a plane to London and discovers the gritty bohemian life of squatting, busking, and general drug-fueled partying. Still, the days hold an unreal tinge to them, and Skye finds herself in a one-sided obsession with Pieces, who begins to withdraw and skips town to Amsterdam. Beyond the mystery of Skye's missing memory and hazy dream visions, a darkness seeps out from beneath the floor of their home, dubbed the Trashed Palace, and into Skye's consciousness. Meanwhile, the reader is already aware that someone has been watching Skye since New York City via hidden cameras; intermittent chapters of observation are laid out as if they're snippets from a screenplay. Though the novel is deftly plotted and full of well-rounded, interesting characters, the desperate anger of Skye and Pieces' relationship is meant to be abrasive, giving the book a jagged edge. A tightly written and compelling psychedelic adventure. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.