"Fresh out of art school with — as her undergraduate advisor put it — a lack of vision for her future, Maggie follows a talented classmate to Japan. There she meets a group of maladjusted foreigners and immediately becomes enmeshed in their volatile friendships and personal dramas. She gets a job teaching English at Language Love Academy where she meets Keiko, an overzealous student who offers to teach Maggie Japanese. An unlikely friendship develops between them, and before long Keiko has become a ballast amid the disruptive forces in Maggie’s life overseas.

Have Maggie and her friends come to Japan to disappear or find themselves? Are their friendships real or just another illusion? Maggie struggles to discern whether she is sinking deeper into her hapless life abroad or gaining a foothold on a real future for herself. Armstrong’s striking debut novel paints a deft portrait of twenty-somethings yearning for identity, connection, and freedom abroad during the turbulent years of the early aughts."