Summer in the City of Roses

Praise for Summer in the City of Roses A Tor.com Best Books of 2021 “Michelle Ruiz Keil’s writing is achingly beautiful, her books deep, thought-provoking, and magical. She doesn’t flinch from the raw pain of teens coping with rough stuff—from abuse and neglect to identity issues and neurodivergence—but transforms them (sometimes literally) through magical realism, into haunting and luscious modern fables that are still grounded and gritty in all the best ways . . . A mosaic of Greek tragedy, punk rock, Shakespeare, social conscience, folklore, and mysticism, Summer in the City of Roses glitters even as its sharp edges cut and draw blood.”  —Laini Taylor “A gorgeous, tender, warm-hearted reworking of mythic material that also feels resolutely set in the world that we live in.” —Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble “Michelle Ruiz Keil has crafted an absolute stunner of a novel full of myths and misfits. Summer in the City of Roses pulses with magic and music and is, at its core, a grand celebration of love in all its tricky and beautiful forms.” —Samantha Mabry, author of All the Wind in the World and Tigers, Not Daughters “Summer in the City of Roses is riveting, singular, poetic, powerful, fierce, soft, heartbreaking, and heart-mending, as tender as velvet and sharp as the bloody antler underneath. Michelle Ruiz Keil is the Erin Morgenstern of YA.” —Delilah Dawson, author of the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: PHASMA and coauthor of the Tales of Pell “This enchanting book—like the real-life magical city where it's set—will draw you in and transform you into a more alive and creative version of yourself. A captivating work of magical realism that will delight both YA and adult readers. Michelle Ruiz Keil writes like a dream.” —Ariel Gore, author of We Were Witches “Grab this book and your tarot deck, head to Forest Park, and fall into a folkloric, feminist journey through the City of Roses.” —Ariel Kusby, author of The Little Witch’s Book of Spells “Lush, empathetic, strident, puckish, infused with a street-level punk-rock magic . . . Much of its magic hums along like a current beneath the book’s skin, bursting out in full bloom for a transformative finale. But it’s there all along, if you’re looking—and this is the kind of book you want to give your full attention to.” —Tor.com “Part myth, part magic, this is an imaginative tale that speaks to the challenges and joys of growing up.” —Ms. Magazine “[An] enchanting read . . . If you are nostalgic for the early 1990s, enjoy retellings of Greek fairy tales, are curious to explore a world where things are possible, and have time to sit with the story after turning the last page, then this novel is worth the time.”  —Feminist Book Club “Alternative parenting. Arts and maker communities. Street-level social work that included outreach to sex workers. Feminist activism that included the Riot Grrrls movement. All those threads and more come together in Ruiz Keil’s new novel, Summer in the City of Roses, a coming-of-age fairy tale that draws from Greek mythology and Grimm Brothers lore to tell the story of a pivotal season for siblings Iphigenia and Orestes.” —The Oregonian “In alternating perspectives, this contemporary reimagining diverges from its inspirations: the myth of Iphigenia and Orestes and the Brothers Grimm’s “Brother and Sister.” The families in both stories suffer b