Amanda Brainerd's debut novel, Age of Consent, is a bracing, full-throttle dive into female coming-of-age in 1980s New York City. Justine grew up in New Haven with well-meaning, artistic parents who were often distracted by trying to keep their avant-garde theater afloat. Eve, in contrast, grew up with an overbearing mother on Park Avenue. The two become close friends while stuck in a preppy Connecticut boarding school. They long for the future lives they envision for themselves in New York City. But when they have the opportunity to spend a summer living and interning there, the experience changes them in ways they could not have imagined.
As haunting and nostalgic as a sepia-toned photograph, Age of Consent captures a fascinating era. From the cocaine-fueled art scene to the hangover-hazy Hamptons, the world that Brainerd conjures is one defined both by lingering old-world glamour and crippling new-world carelessness. Poised at this crumbling intersection, Justine and Eve encapsulate the bittersweet desperation of young adulthood; as their desires reach new peaks, they are continually disillusioned. While their experiences at boarding school develop them as vulnerable but strong young women, their exploration of the complex social world of Manhattan reveals the uncomfortable truths behind the imagined lives they have constructed. Readers will enjoy the whiplash pace even as--like the novel's characters who become increasingly numb to the thrill--they yearn to pump the brakes before it's too late. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor