Becoming Carly Klein

Fans of contemporary coming-of-age young adult fiction will root for Carly Klein as she fights to find her place in the world—even if she has to lie to everyone in her life to get there.

Neglected by self-absorbed parents who wind up divorcing by the time she’s sixteen, Carly Klein is sustained by her best friend, Lauren. But when Lauren and her family move away, Carly is forced to find new ways to entertain herself. It doesn’t take her long to locate the perfect subject: her therapist mother’s patients.

Carly soon becomes obsessed with one patient in particular—Daniel, a blind junior at Columbia College—and, desperate to become part of his life and knowing he’ll never go for a high school girl, gets close to him by pretending to be a student at neighboring Barnard College. Becoming Carly Klein follows Carly on a roller coaster romp through the exhilaration and disappointment of first love—and the unintended consequences of disguise, deception, and discovery.

Elizabeth Harlan grew up and went to high school and college in New York City, where her story is set. She has written young adult novels and a literary biography for adult readers. Her recurring theme is mother/daughter relationships. Having mothered two children and grandmothered four grandchildren, she still identifies most powerfully with young girls struggling to grow out from under the oppressive yolk of misguided mothering. She lives on the East End of Long Island and on a barrier island off the West Coast of Florida.