Told in alternating teen voices across three generations, You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture-for better or worse. Fans of Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star will find a lot to love in this literary tour de force.   

From a grandmother worried that her children are losing their Indian identity to a daughter wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair to a granddaughter social-activist fighting to preserve Bengali tigers, Perkins weaves together the threads of a family growing into an American identity.   

Here is a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new.