We Run the Tides

Book excerpt: “This enigmatic tale of adolescent friendship . . . is smart, sly, and as knowing about the mind and heart of a teenage girl as an Elena Ferrante novel.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “One of the best novels about girlhood and female friendship I’ve ever read.” —Mary Beth Keane, New York Times–bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes “A tough and exquisite sliver of a short novel whose world I want to remain lost in. . . . [A] spectacular narrator . . . [A] wonder of a novel.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air Teenager Eulabee and her best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their San Francisco neighborhood. They know Sea Cliff’s homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act—or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola’s sudden disappearance—a potential kidnapping that shakes the community and threatens to expose unspoken truths. Set in pre-tech boom San Francisco, a city on the brink of radical transformation, and 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. “The affectionate specificity of the portrait [Vida] offers is one of the book’s real pleasures.” —The New York Times Book Review “Detailed and vibrant.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Smart, perceptive, elegant, sad, surprising and addictive.” —Nick Hornby, New York Times–bestselling author of About a Boy “There’s something naughty, almost gleeful about this nostalgia-soaked portrayal of pre-tech-boom San Francisco that keeps the pages turning.” —San Francisco Chronicle