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Seventeen-year-old Girl is haunted by the feeling that her life will end on her 18th birthday, like it did for her mom.

Homeless in San Francisco, she wanders looking for a place to sleep and meaning to her life. When her best friend dies, Girl decides it’s time to leave San Francisco and see the rest of the country.

Girl Hits the Road

Girl gathers enough money for a bus ticket to Nebraska where she hopes to connect with a girl she met in a San Francisco bar.


On her journey she falls too quickly for strangers, making one poor decision after another and following every cute woman that catches her fancy.

Girl seduces a housewife in Salt Lake City, gets off the bus to go on tour with a born-again Christian and her boyfriend’s band. Girl ultimately ends up on a Nebraska farm, where she rekindles her friendship and starts to feel like she has a place to call home. But still she is not at peace.

Where Will it End?

Girl obtains a gun and steals a few cars along the way. The tension builds and you wonder when it’s all going to catch up to her and if she’s going to end up like her mother, dead at 18.

Katia Noyes takes us on a wild journey with a lost youth in Crashing America. If you’ve ever dreamed of just leaving everything behind and taking off on the open road, this book just might change your mind. But it is definitely worth the armchair journey. I recommend Crashing America.