On Their Own quinceañera club National Book Critics Circle and

National Book Critics Circle and PEN/Faulkner award-winning author)

a job accompanying a sexy but self-destructive paleontologist on the world's worst field assignment

from the beautiful to the corrupt

As a population hungry for justice threatens to riot

"a masterful novelist working at the peak of his form" (Washington Post)

On Their Own quinceañera club National Book Critics Circle andEach year, as many as 25,000 teenagers "age out" of foster care, usually when they turn eighteen. For years, a government agency had made every important decision for them. Suddenly, they are on their own, with no one to count on. What does it mean to be eighteen and on your own, without the family support and personal connections that most young people rely on? For many youth raised in foster care, it means largely unhappy endings, including sudden