{"product_id":"if-you-follow-me-9780061732850","title":"If You Follow Me","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"I love, love, love \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIf You Follow Me\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e. It's fearlessly honest, occasionally heartbreaking, and extremely funny, and I can't recommend it highly enough.\" -- Curtis Sittenfeld, \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e bestselling author of \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePrep\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e and \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAmerican Wife\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Malena Watrous' beautifully wrought and deftly written debut novel, we meet Marina, a young woman who has come to the small, rural Japanese town of Shika to teach English for a year. For her, Shika is more than just her home as a \"temporary person.\" It's also an attempt to escape the reality that has followed her since her father committed suicide only a year earlier. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarina is a big city girl is in a small town filled with off-beat characters, including an ambitious town matchmaker, a dentist looking for free English lessons, a high school student who idolizes Western rap artists, and finally Marina's America-obsessed supervisor, Hiro, a town leader whose friendship teaches her more than she ever expected.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIf You Follow Me\u003c\/em\u003e is at once a fish-out-of-water tale, a dark comedy of manners, and a strange kind of love story that explores the tension of being the outsider in an intimate community and the joy in finding that human nature is the same everywhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWatrous, Malena:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003eMalena Watrous's short fiction has appeared in \u003cem\u003eStory Quarterly\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eGlimmer Train\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eTriquarterly\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Massachusetts Review\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eKyoto Journal\u003c\/em\u003e. The winner of the Michener-Copernicus Award, she lives in San Francisco.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50459897921810,"sku":"9780061732850","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_27dd900b-e0d1-4275-8d29-afc5e7219c45.jpg?v=1730012874","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/if-you-follow-me-9780061732850","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}