Into the Dangerous World

Viking / Penguin, 2015. Good secondhand condition.

At a family meeting, Ror declares her purpose: I am an artist. But she doesn't really know what that means. Raised on a commune, she's never attended a day of school, and has seen little of the outside world. What she knows best is drawing. To her, it's like breathing; it's how she makes sense of the world.

When her father torches the commune?and himself?Ror's life changes. She, her mother and her sister end up in Manhattan, in a residence for the homeless, where she runs into trouble?and love?with Trey, the leader of Noise Ink, a graffiti crew.

On the city's streets, and in its museums and galleries, Ror finds herself pulled in different directions. Her father wanted her to make classic art. Noise Ink insists she stay within their lines. Her art teacher urges her to go to college. What does she want? What kind of artist am I?

Ror's journey is a seamless blend of words and pictures, cinematic in its scope?a sharp-edged, indelible work of art that will live inside your head.