Towelhead

When Jasira's mother finds out what has been going on in the bathroom between her boyfriend and her thirteen-year-old daughter, she has to make a choice - and chooses her boyfriend. So Jasira is packed off to Houston, Texas to live with the Daddy she barely knows. Jasira's father is a remote figure: a disciplinarian prone to explosive rages. Unable to show his daughter the love she craves, he is still less able to handle her feelings about her changing body, which Jasira begins to suspect disgusts him.

Painfully funny, tender and sexually charged, Towelhead is that rare thing: a gloriously readable novel unafraid to take risks. The story of a girl failed by her parents and by a conflicted America. Towelhead is an ultimately redemptive coming-of-age story that none of us can afford to ignore.