Nightcrawling - Leila Mottley

Longlisted for The Booker Prize 2022

When there is no choice, all you have left to do is walk. Kiara Johnson does not know what it is to live as a normal seventeen-year-old. With her mother in a rehab facility and an older brother who devotes his time and money to a recording studio, she fends for herself - and for nine-year-old Trevor, whose own mother is prone to disappearing for days at a time.

But honesty comes at a price - one that could leave her family vulnerable to their retaliation, and endanger everyone she loves. Nightcrawling is an unforgettable novel about young people navigating the darkest corners of an adult world, told with a humanity that is at once agonising and utterly mesmerising.