DESCRIPTION

An achingly beautiful story of female friendship, betrayal, and a mysterious disappearance set in the changing landscape of San Francisco.

Teenage Eulabee and her magnetic best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighborhood. They know Sea Cliff's homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters--as well as the upscale all-girls' school they attend. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act--or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola vehemently disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola's sudden disappearance--a potential kidnapping that shakes the quiet community and threatens to expose unspoken truths.

Suspenseful and poignant, We Run the Tides is Vendela Vida's masterful portrait of an inimitable place on the brink of radical transformation. Pre-tech boom San Francisco finds its mirror in the changing lives of the teenage girls at the center of this story of innocence lost, the pain of too much freedom, and the struggle to find one's authentic self. Told with a gimlet eye and great warmth, We Run the Tides is both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth, in all its beauty and confusion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vendela Vida is the author of And Now You Can Go and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She is a founding coeditor of The Believer Magazine, and the editor of The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers.

REVIEWS

"If you can't get enough '80s nostalgia (and I count myself among you), Vendela Vida's latest will scratch that itch. In this tense story of teen female friendship and betrayal in the pre-tech bro years of San Francisco, BFFs Eulabee and Maria Fabiola have a dramatic falling out that's followed by Maria Fabiola's disappearance. Early readers have been responding with ALL CAPS-level excitement; my curiosity is suitably piqued. " —LitHub

"From the first page, We Run the Tides is captivating. A story about girlhood, friendship, and the pathologies of innocence and victimhood, it reminds me of Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, but set against the furious backdrop of San Francisco's Sea Cliff neighborhood. Its scope, ferocity, and main characters are unforgettable. Vendela Vida is masterful at constructing the nuances and complications of how young girls become aware of their power, and the choices they make once they wield it."—Sally Wen Mao, author of Oculus

”I didn't want it to end.” —Tom Stoppard

“We Run the Tides is smart, perceptive, elegant, sad, surprising and addictive. And it's also FUNNY. Who knew that you could combine all of those qualities into one slim volume? Not many writers, that's for sure. I loved every single page, and was sorry when I had to say goodbye to Eulabee and her family." —Nick Hornby

”The dreamy yearning and turmoil of youth are evoked here so vividly as to seem supernaturally conjured. However long ago you were a teenager, We Run the Tides will bring the quandaries and sensations right back. Vendela Vida has written a novel of absorbing, exquisite economy and percipience. She has also written an intimate allegory of our unraveling tether to truth."—Lisa Halliday, author of Asymmetry

“Vida, whose polished and incisive prose is in the Didion mode, inflects this droll and sensitive coming-of-age tale . . . with eviscerating social commentary. A nimble and arresting drama about the spell cast by beauty, the compulsion to lie, the valor of forthrightness, and the inevitability of the inexplicable.” —Booklist (starred review)