A Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Debutiful, Oprah Daily, and Vogue - A Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2024 by the New York Times

"Magnetic . . . The ennui of small-town life is perfectly captured in the slice-of-life vignettes, which coalesce into a riveting set of Rashomon-style retellings. Grabowski shows immense promise." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"I am a big fan of Women and Children First . . . Alina Grabowski is an astute and limber narrative artist and I could read her prose all day long and never grow weary." --Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate at the Stairs

"In Grabowski's craftily constructed and deeply moving debut, ten girls and women in a decaying coastal Massachusetts tourist town respond to the death of a teenager at a house party . . . Grabowski so deftly depicts the web of relations in this oppressively tight-knit community that it becomes evident how life changes for one character reverberate even for those who would seem outside her sphere of influence." --Booklist, starred review

"Wow wow wow! Alina Grabowski's original and brilliantly written novel, Women and Children First, tells the story of a teenager named Lucy Anderson, who dies at a high school house party, through the lens of ten different women narrators--from her best friend to her principal to her mother. I was dazzled by the author's skill and emotional depth." --Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Five-Star Weekend and The Perfect Couple

"Girls and women inflict damage on each other by being too close and not recognizing their own agency and power, and also because disrupting systems of male privilege is difficult. Grabowski's exploration of all these ideas makes for a brilliant novel. A smart, propulsive novel attentive to the ways community can fall short." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Reading Women and Children First