Hungered: A Novel

Goodreads Editors’ Book Pick

For readers of The House on Mango Street and We the Animals, this striking debut brings to life an unforgettable young narrator and the complicated, loving, cruel, and generous figures that make up her universe.

Sofia’s mother promises that soon she’ll have her own bedroom to decorate. Soon, too, she’ll be able to see her friends, go back to school, and eat the colorful, tempting cakes in the grocery store’s display case. For now, though, twelve-year-old Sofia lives with her mother and younger brother in their car. For now, Sofia’s days are a blur of freeways and strip malls as her mother searches for a safe place to park for the night. For now, Sofia tries to carve out a space and an identity for herself while grappling with her family’s disintegration.

This haunting and lyrical novel captures the fault lines of an existence marked by economic insecurity, exploring what it means to come of age during a moment of displacement. Beautiful, evocative, and emotionally charged, Amanda Rizkalla’s Hungered is an indelible ode to survival, memory, and the search for home in its many forms.