A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY A wondrous, deeply affecting portrait of the interlocking lives at an adult day care center in Southern California, depicting an often overlooked community with extraordinary wit and gracean explosive novel (Ron Charles) by a major new literary voice hailed as a groundbreaking debut novelist (Publishers Weekly)

[A] singular debut novel.The New York Times
Implosive and wonderfully inspirational.Paul Beatty
Great characters, great pace, great storyreading Upward Bound is a complicated joy.Roddy Doyle
It will change the way you look at the world.Angie Kim
A moving, illuminating glimpse into a world we rarely have access to.Good Housekeeping
Woody Brown accomplishes the seemingly impossible.Mona Simpson
This captivating work illuminates a world too often ignored.Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A Most Anticipated Book: The New York Times, Time, Harpers Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Alta Journal, Publishers Weekly, Literary Hub, Publishers Lunch

Upward Bound is not a place anyone dreams of spending their days. The dreary adult daycare center for Los Angeless disabled community is, for many of its clients and staff, a place of last resort. This includes Carlos, a young aide who lost his mother as a boy and now works there alongside his beloved sister, Mariana; Jorge, the gentle nonspeaking giant whom Carlos seeks to befriend (and prevent from escaping); Tom, a beautiful young man with cerebral palsy who pines for Ann, the summer lifeguard at the centers pool who feels out of her depth. Then theres Dave, Upward Bounds director, who came to L.A. to pursue an acting career but now channels his passion into staging an overly ambitious holiday show starring the centers irrepressible clients. Framing these intertwined narrativesand connecting them in surprising, shattering waysis the riveting and sometimes ironic testimony of Walter, a recent community college graduate who, after a family tragedy, must return to the company of his disabled peers.

In Upward Bound, Woody Brown has created an indelible, authentic, and profoundly moving group portrait of autism and other disabilities, all illuminated by his empathy, sly sense of humor, and enormous gifts as a novelist. With remarkable sophistication, insight, and creativity, Brown depicts a community too-often invisible in literature and society. Filled with characters you wont soon forget, Upward Bound will inspire and touch you, teaching you as much about yourself as the tender, miraculous world behind the centers doors.