In August of 2009, Julia Cooke moved to Cuba for ten months and gained access to a dynamic Havana that she’d never heard or read about before—a city populated with twenty-five-year-old Marxist philosophy students, baby-faced anarchists, whiskey-drinking children of the political elite, Santería trainees, savvy prostitutes, and more.

What began as a journalism project to interview the youth of Havana became something more explicitly personal, for both her sources and Cooke herself. The result of her efforts is The Other Side of Paradise, a book that weaves together the stories of those Cooke encountered to provide a glimpse into the lives of young people in Cuba today.

From ambitious Lucía—a recent university graduate with an acerbic sense of humor and plans to leave Cuba for whichever country gives her a visa first—to a crew of Mohawk-wearing teenaged anarchists who cite lyrics by The Clash (but don't know who Joe Strummer was) to explain why they’d dropped out of school, the captivating characters of The Other Side of Paradise paint a vivid portrait of Cuba’s youth that will linger in readers' minds long after they’ve put the book down.