SLEEPING AROUND

A young woman must find her place in the world in Vega’s debut new-adult novel.

Coralee Reed, who’s 18, is aging out of the foster-care system and leaving her Midwestern home of seven months. She’s a violinist, headed for nearby Borns College as a music major. When she arrives, there’s a mix-up that leaves her without a room assignment. She ends up rooming with Emma Anderson, and they become fast friends. One of Coralee’s new classmates is Dylan Mason, an old rival from regional orchestra. She’s starting to feel that she belongs at the school until Emma’s absent roommate, Harper, shows up and complicates matters. Coralee has a little crush on Dylan, whom she believes is gay; her affection is deepened when she finds out that he once stood up for her in high school against kids who said cruel things about her. Dylan confesses that he likes Coralee, too, but that he’s wary of a pursuing a romance for “complicated” reasons. As things get worse with Harper, Coralee reaches out to her foster family for help and starts to think about not cutting off all ties with them when she turns 21. Things eventually come to a head in a way that jeopardizes Coralee’s future at the university. Coralee’s history in the foster system makes her struggles to find a safe place on campus all the more realistic, and a major theme of Vega’s novel is the protagonist’s quest to figure out where she belongs—with her foster family, with Emma or Dylan, or with any of her roommates. The author does a fine job of capturing just what it’s like to be a college freshman—constantly meeting new people, living in complex dorm situations, and running around campus to get to classes. Music theory references are well integrated and help to show Coralee’s passion for the violin. Overall, not a lot happens in the story until the latter half of the book, but although the beginning is a bit slow, the ending is solid and satisfying.

An unevenly paced but poignant coming-of-age story.