"I recently read an advance copy of a first novel that’s fantastic: “If You Follow Me” by Malena Watrous. It’s about a young American woman who goes to teach for a year in rural Japan, and it’s incredibly funny and awkward and real — it’s my favorite kind of fiction because it keeps you in the moment with the main character, sharing all her hilariously excruciating experiences."
- Curtis Sittenfeld
Reviews
“Japan seems to be a particularly difficult place to sort yourself out if you are a sensitive, rules-averse American woman with a flexible sexuality and a penchant for getting into trouble, like the narrator of Malena Watrous’s smart, comic first novel, IF YOU FOLLOW ME. But fortunately for the rest of us, calamity borne with a good sense of humor often turns into a great story.”
— New York Times
“IF YOU FOLLOW ME is a good antidote to books like Eat, Pray, Love. Sure, it’s also about an American girl who finds self-knowledge and solace abroad—but Watrous’s novel is no self-indulgent romp. She writes real, flawed human beings in genuine relationships stumbling toward the adorably quirky on one side or the broodingly obscure on the other.”
— The Rumpus
“Her writing is direct and conversational. And she is able to deliver an excruciating portrayal of Marina’s internal struggles.”
— Oregon's Register Gard
“A distinctive voice lifts it above similar fish-out-of-water tales.”
— Eugene Weekly