Finalist, 2025 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Fiction
Ms., A Must-Read Book
Cosmopolitan, A Best New Book of January
Nylon, A Best Book of the Month
Named a Most Anticipated Book by Elle, Goodreads, Write or Die, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Lambda Literary Review, Bookshop, and LGBTQ Reads
Akúa is returning home to Jamaica for the first time in ten years. Her younger brother has died suddenly, and Akúa hopes to reconnect with her estranged older sister, Tamika. Over three fateful weeks, the sisters visit significant places from their childhood where Akúa spreads her brother's ashes. But time spent with Tamika only seems to make apparent how different they are and how alone Akúa feels.
Then Akúa meets Jayda, a brash stripper who reveals a different side of Kingston. As the two women grow closer, Akúa is forced to confront the difficult reality of being gay in a deeply religious family, and what it means to be a gay woman in Jamaica. Her trip comes to a frenzied and dangerous end, but not without a glimmer of hope of how to be at peace with her sister—and herself.
By turns diasporic family saga, bildungsroman, and terse sexual awakening, Broughtupsy asks: What are we willing to do for family, and what are we willing to do to feel at home?
