Local Girls

Praise

“A man walks into a bar. Three women, longtime friends, glance up from their drinks, straighten their spines and start scheming to take him home. Do we want another novel about girlfriends competing for the attention of an alluring man? If that novel is this poised debut, the answer is yes. . . . Zancan endows her seemingly ordinary threesome with brains, guts and distinct opinions, bringing them vividly to life. . . . [Her] prose is thoughtful and well executed. Ultimately, Zancan’s ambitions extend beyond the story of three bored girls on a boozy August night. She nails the overheated weirdness of Central Florida and the grind of barely scraping by. She writes convincingly about the illusions that the famous and non-famous maintain about each other. Above all, she illuminates the joys and peculiar intimacies of female friendship by showing us one close to its end.”—Eliza Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review

“Summer’s Best Books. . . . A Florida bar, restless teens, a movie star, and a sudden death. That delectable combo—plus Zancan’s eye for the telling detail—makes this first novel a worthy addition to your beach bag.”—People 

“Zancan’s enchanting debut centers on the deeply emeshed friendship of three girlfriends, living at home one summer in a small Florida town. When a chance encounter with a celebrity and the reappearance of an estranged member of the group throw the girls’ interpersonal problems into stark relief—class differences, a prank gone wrong—they are forced to reconsider one another and themselves. Zancan’s writing captures the pain of adolescence and will strike a note with any reader who can remember craving escape from the difficulties of growing up.”—Elle

“Zancan does a beautiful job spinning [her characters’] casual cruelties and small kindnesses into riveting fiction.”—Entertainment Weekly

“A perfectly imagined debut novel.” —Marie Claire

“[You’ll] be captivated.” —Cosmopolitan

“Zancan’s promising debut chronicles the end of a longtime friendship as remembered in flashbacks by 19-year-old Maggie, who’s having drinks in a Florida dive bar in the company of two female friends and Sam, a movie star who happens by.”—Publishers Weekly, Book of the Week

“Zancan’s prose beautifully captures this time in a young woman’s life, when she is just figuring out that her life is not something to be planned, but that it is already happening, and she better hurry up and start living it, or risk missing it altogether. More than that, though, it ably evokes the fraught relationships many female friends have with one another, in which their shared histories can bring them closer together or—in the case of one of the book’s characters—drive them far away.”—Brooklyn Magazine

“Caroline Zancan gifts us the friendship novel of the summer with this page-turner about four best friends, all 19 years old, and a hot movie star who shows up to their sleepy Florida town.”—Metro

“Local Girls is a heart-aching debut, a wonderful, stinging look at the point in which teens start making their move into adulthood, and the discovery that their best friends might not be there for them always.”—Bookriot

“In this all-too-relatable debut, novelist Caroline Zancan explores those complex and intricate relationships between best girl friends—you know, the ones you meet during the transformative time between high school and college. When a celebrity enters their sleepy Florida town and throws a wrench into the lives of these pop culture-obsessed teens, layers are pulled back and friendships are questioned.”—Refinery 29

“We’re pretty excited about this new novel about a trio of friends who stumble upon a grown-up teen heartthrob at their local dive bar in steamy summer Florida.”—Pure Wow, 30 Beach Reads

“Set smack dab in the middle of Florida, there’s not a more perfect backdrop imaginable for the perfect summer read on the hottest summer days. Like the oppressive heat of a Floridian August, female friendships, especially those in the post-high school transition, can weigh you down until you’re gulping for air. Tack on a Ryan Gosling-esque celebrity character, who mysteriously ends up in the same bar as the three 19 year-old protagonists, and you’ve got the makings of a page turner even the beach can’t beat.”—The Riveter 
 
“Funny and poignant . . . An achingly good, ennui drenched story of friendship and shared history in the humid depths of Florida. It’s a perfect summer read about the moment when, just like that, you’re an adult.”—BookPage 

“You’re at your favorite beach-town bar, and your celebrity crush walks in. What next? Zancan puts an intense, psychological spin on this dream scenario in Local Girls. [She] infuses her narrative with both carefree fun and deeply felt human emotions familiar to any reader who’s experience a complicated friendship.”—The Huffington Post 

“In Zancan’s debut, three Florida girls experience a life-changing night when they discover a movie star at their favorite local haunt. The Shamrock doesn’t see much excitement. In fact, you can pretty much guarantee how a night there will unfold. Nestled in a nowhere town outside of Orlando, it’s the go-to place for Maggie, Nina, and Lindsey to test-drive their newfound adulthood. As narrator Maggie paints this picture, she notes that, on the surface, ‘we look happy.’ But when A-list movie star Sam Decker arrives in search of a night of drinking away from the spotlight, this illusion of stability begins to unravel. . . . A character study that will draw you in.”—Kirkus

“Entertaining, genuine, and engaging, Local Girls evokes small town Central Florida in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s wonderful to see the trickled down contemporary cultural disseminations take life in the sensibilities of three nineteen year olds, decidedly off the college track.”—Mona Simpson 

“Caroline Zancan understands that best friends are often anything but. In her delightful and honest debut, she reaches into the twisted core of female friendships and unravels them in all their harsh complexity.”—Ivy Pochoda, author of Visitation Street
 
“Local Girls is part break-up, part love-letter to that languorous period just after high school ends and just before real life—ever elliptical, always mercurial—begins. An utterly charming debut.”—Hannah Pittard, author of The Fates Will Find Their Way and Reunion
 
“What is more compelling than a shared history with the power to both unite and destroy? Such is the situation in Local Girls. Though the mystery of a death itself pulls the reader forward, the real suspense rests with the stories of the young women who witness the final hours. Caroline Zancan is a fine writer who brings great insight and wisdom to this study of our culture.”—Jill McCorkle, New York Times–bestselling author of Life After Life