Good Girl

A Novel

By: Aria Aber

Narrated by: Mozhan Navabi

An electric debut novel about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of self-discovery—“a stunning coming-of-age story” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a portrait of the artist as a young woman set in a Berlin that can’t escape its history

A girl can get in almost anywhere, even if she can’t get out.

“A no-bullsh*t, must-read debut.”—Kaveh Akbar

“Kaleidoscopic, full of style and soul.”—Raven Leilani

“I loved this book.”—Leslie Jamison

One of Autostraddle’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist.

Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany—and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?

A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.

©2025 Aria Aber (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“A stunning coming-of-age story . . . a remarkable achievement.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“I disappeared into the many overlapping and colliding worlds of this book and emerged with a glistening, vibrating, beautifully exhausted heart. . . . I loved this book.”—Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters

“Aber’s ear is so remarkably good you hardly even notice she’s building this great symphony of textures, mosaics within mosaics.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!