Finding Melody Sullivan

Melody Sullivan is falling apart after the death of her mother.

The 16-year-old pours her cynicism and grief into poetry and an intense relationship with her powerhouse best friend, Yasmina Khdour. When Melody’s father drags her to an overseas archeology conference in Jerusalem, she is left to wander alone.

Hanging out on a Tel Aviv beach, smoking dope with her Israeli cousins and their army buddies, sounds like fun until she is sexually assaulted by a friend of her cousin. She cannot share this devastating truth with her emotionally distant dad and impulsively flees to Hebron where Yasmina is visiting her family. As a Palestinian, Yasmina is unable to enter Jerusalem.

Melody’s only other source of solace is Aaron Shapiro, a shy, religious boy back home with an awkward crush on her, but Aaron’s anxious texts make it clear he believes she’s wandering into enemy territory.

This is a story about trauma and taking emotional risks, about facing internal demons and the external realities of war and occupation, about finding oneself in the most unexpected places.