“The memoir’s overall emotional resonance and its keen insight into a specific time and place are enough to reward patient readers. An . . . often incisive exploration of early adulthood.” Kirkus Reviews

It’s 1994 and Josie, a Filipino American overachiever-turned-partyer, returns from study abroad in England to finish out her senior year of college in Los Angeles, her hometown. Despite her lowered ambitions–she has resigned herself to hedonistic indulgence as the best she can do with her life–Josie finds herself in a painful struggle to overcome everyday cruelties. Cast against an American landscape that sees the rise of modern cultural hallmarks including celebrity scandal, televised civil strife and media sensationalism, Josie finds herself flailing again and again. A neurodiverse, bisexual and genderqueer woman of color, Josie’s experiences of oppression exacerbate her attempts to hold onto optimism about her future. Feeling increasingly burdened by existential angst, ‘mommy issues’ and unresolved trauma, she begins to suspect that living in LA may not be helping her self-destructive depression. Josie takes to the road, vagabonding through the States in search of answers. She catches a glimpse of a different life up north, in San Francisco. Openness, non-normativity, and ecstatic exploration seems to await her somewhere else, if only she can get there. But after all that she has been through, does she dare to hope that it truly can get better? 

Adrift in Adulting: My College Coming-of-Age in 1990s LA is Josie Valderrama’s debut memoir. This powerful and beautifully wrought story will resonate with readers drawn to harrowing early adulthood tales told with insight, wit and compassion.