"A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself. The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary....

During her sophomore year at Harvard, Selin's quest for self-knowledge leads to certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol and sex and is determined to participate no matter the cost.