Krystle Brantzeg: Indoor Girl, Gebunden

Klappentext

In this modern day Rapunzel story, fifteen year old Keysa's captivity is much more complicated than it is in fairytales. For starters, it's caused by her mother's paralyzing agoraphobia. But when a termite infestation eats its way into their home, an unlikely prince arrives in the form of the nephew of an exterminator who is in need of his own kind of saving.

Weaving together a thread of Jenny Han-esque romance with the mental health themes of Picture Us in the Light, Indoor Girl is a dark, screwball romance that simultaneously explores the messy tendrils of mother-daughter relationships amid mental illness, grief, and the push-and-pull of growing up.

Ever since her father's death four years ago, fifteen-year-old Keysa Perrault's life has shrunk to the confines of her books, Pinterest boards of now-out-of-reach college campuses, and bittersweet memories of when she was allowed to venture past her mailbox--back when her mom's extreme agoraphobia and controlling nature didn't keep them both from leaving the house. Debilitated by anxiety, fear, and what Keysa's dad used to call parentnoia, her mom Rose has resorted to self-medicating with cough medicine, making Filipino recipes only Keysa eats, and replacing her life outside the house with prayers to the rosary and her late husband's finite insurance money to get by.

But when termites chew their way into Keysa's bedroom, they bring DJ Kim, a high school volleyball star who's grieving a recent death of his own and serving time with his exterminator uncle. And despite DJ's closed-off attitude and plummeting GPA, Keysa can't help but see in him a rare window of opportunity for freedom.

Desperate for a night out of her bubble, Keysa and DJ strike a deal: tutoring and good grades for him, late-night joyrides for her--after her mom has taken her cold medicine, that is.

Keysa and DJ start off visiting places that remind her of her dad and past life--In-N-Out, the beach, the Cinco de Mayo costume carnival. But as their covert lifts turn into starlight trysts, Keysa begins to suffocate under the weight of her dual life. Soon, she's faced with two options: she can either stay indoors, keep DJ a secret forever, and bury her dreams of going off to college--or she can fly in the face of her mother's ever-tightening rules and expose the truth, risking Rose's mental health and Keysa's own freedom along the way.