In the acclaimed author of Brooklyn, Burning comes Guy in Real Life, an achingly real and profoundly moving love story about two teens that National Book Award-finalist Sara Zarr has called ‘wholly original and instantly classic.’

It is Labor Day weekend in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and youngster and young lady collide on a dark street at two thirty each day: Lesh, who wears black, listens to metal, and has MMOs; Svetlana, who embroiders her skirts, listens to Björk and Berlioz, and dungeon masters her personal RPG. They should find themselves up, keep on their method, and never talk to each other once again.

But they don’t.

This is a story of the roles most of us play-at school, in the home, online, and with our friends-and the one person who might be able to show us who we are underneath it all.