“The road to adulthood is paved with a million necessary mistakes, and Halimah Marcus's smart and affecting debut novel takes us along that treacherous, exhilarating path.” —Maggie Shipstead, New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle

A spiky, sparkling coming-of-age about finding your place and your people, and how to hold yourself together when it all falls apart

It’s 2010 and Ummi Jenkins is ready to reinvent herself in New York City. Freshly graduated, and free from the confines of her strict upbringing in a mostly white community of Sufi Muslims outside Philadelphia, she arrives on the first day of her dream internship at the prestigious literary magazine ambitious and out of her depth. Bringing coffee, digitizing the archives, wading through mountains of submissions — whatever it takes to make a name for herself in the literary world, Ummi is prepared to get it done.

Her initiation is quick and unforgiving as Ummi faces some surprising firsts: first flirtation with an engaged coworker, first Cheeto-themed rave, first time meeting her literary hero, first court summons. But the one that outshines them all? First intern to discover a story from the "slush pile" and get it published in the magazine, with all the honor and passive-aggressive envy from her fellow interns that comes with it.

Soon Ummi finds herself weighing her need to fit in with her desire to stand out, and feels torn between her crush's mixed signals the bald flirtation of an up-and-coming writer. For the first time, becoming the kind of person she always dreamed of being seems within reach. But when the future of the magazine turns uncertain and her past keeps calling her home, Ummi has to figure out what kind of person that is before the new life she’s just starting crumbles on top of her.

Keenly observed, wry, and brightly charming, Slush is a warm-hearted ode to that precarious time of life that’s bursting with all the self-discovery, self-destruction, and possibilities of youth.