Broken Toys

A sharp, searing campus novel with an unforgettable female friendship at its heart, and a love letter to the messy, glorious years at the start of your twenties, when nothing and everything feels possible all at once. When Esmé Polignac meets Charlotte Cap on the first day of their freshman year at Montrose, she can see the girl is in over her head. Esmé’s entire life had shaped her into the kind of person who belongs in an elite university like Montrose, and it was clear Charlotte’s life had not. Esmé is everything Charlotte wants to be: enigmatic, cool, and utterly unperturbable, never allowing anyone—particularly any boys—to have any control over her. At the same time, Charlotte’s naiveté reminds Esmé of an innocence she wishes she still had, and she feels the urge to tuck Charlotte under her wing.