Call It What You Want

It's 2016, and Sloane Hart is trying to hold the shape of her future together: finish her senior year, keep writing, and make it to New York City, the place she's always imagined her real life beginning. What she hasn't planned for is Ethan Brady — the magnetic, guarded neighbour who keeps turning up at the edges of her carefully mapped-out life.

As their easy banter deepens into something harder to name, Sloane finds herself falling for Ethan even as he keeps parts of himself firmly out of reach. Torn between the ambitions she's chased for years and a person who makes the present feel like enough, she has to decide how much of her plan she's willing to bend — and whether Ethan will ever let her all the way in.

Alissa DeRogatis's new-adult debut is a tender, nostalgic coming-of-age romance about first love, ambition, and the messy overlap between the life you plan and the one you actually want.