Author Description

"An affecting portrait of love gained and lost, Lili Comes To Herself is a delight, both whip-smart and searching. Carada opens a window into a world that few in the West know anything about." Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Lili Danes is choking with estrangement wearing her Young Communist school uniform in 1986 Romania. The science whiz has a knack for mind films involving time travel, ultimate love, and saving John Lennon. It's real life that stifles her. Her brilliant but choleric father bangs doors and turns home into a theatre of conflict. At school, they are a patriot squad of young heroes with titles, protocols and codes of conduct. This isn't me, Lili keeps protesting. Her only hope is to get into university and study astrophysics. Science's neat equations promise a space where she can be herself. No conflicts, no heroes. But life's equations turn out to be messy. Numbed by failure and entangled in an anti-romance, Lili must act before life-changing events force an alien identity on her. Can she still choose who she wants to be?