A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing

Raw and fearless plunge into the mind of a young woman shaped by trauma, family illness, and buried violence. Told in fragmented, urgent prose, the novel captures the inner life of its narrator as she navigates her brother’s brain tumor, a chaotic home, and a tumultuous awakening to sexuality and shame in consequence of sexual abuse. Unflinching and deeply intimate, McBride’s debut is a searing exploration of memory, identity, and survival that lingers long after the final page.