**FINALIST FOR THE BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE**
**LONGLISTED FOR THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVEL AWARD**
**NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 5 UNDER 35 HONOREE**
**FINALIST FOR THE 38TH ANNUAL PUBLISHING TRIANGLE AWARDS' EDMUND WHITE AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION**

Ruth's life changes the day she stands in line with her mother to buy a new school uniform - and sees another girl and her aunt turned away, unable to afford one. The girl, Maria, meets Ruth's stare without shame, and from that moment, Ruth can't stop thinking about her.

When school begins, and they turn out to be the only two girls attending on scholarship, Ruth musters the courage to introduce herself. A friendship forms - not by choice, but by something stronger. Ruth is drawn into Maria's orbit, always circling: never too close, never quite able to pull away.

As they grow up like sisters, attend the same college, and eventually move to 1990s New York to chase dreams in the art world, the bond between them begins to buckle under the weight of ambition and rivalry. Their lives continue to converge and diverge - until they meet in one final and momentous confrontation.

"If you read one book this month, make it this . . . I can't recommend it enough - a tale of a ferocious female friendship unfolding across several decades, this is one for fans of Elena Ferrante. Like Ferrante's books, Lonely Crowds is best enjoyed on languid summer days in the backyard" - * Independent, Culture Newsletter *

"This superb first novel, a Bildungsroman-turned psychodrama, heralds a new American voice. Rarely have I been as rapt as I was by Wambugu's heartbreaking, psychologically rich, cri de coeur" - * Daily Telegraph *

"In her depiction of Ruth, Wambugu depicts best the stubborn fixity of the artist, the pathological potential of their obsessions. At the same time, she writes tenderly about how it might be, or at least might feel, necessary for an artist to fall in love with their subject, to allow their presence to colour their life . . . [Lonely Crowds is] the most cogent example of the artist's life as a life of endless, encircling pursuit" - * The Quietus *

"A stunning debut novel" - * Prima *

"An impressive, gripping debut that has been lauded by critics and readers alike for its honest writing that addresses . . . female friendship and familial dynamics to devotion and the relationship between identity and artmaking, with the precision, insight and nuance of a seasoned novelist" - * AnOther *

"The debut novel that became a cult literary obsession . . . Wambugu's prose is kinetic and finely calibrated, with a poet's dedication to precise images. While Lonely Crowds feels sharply realised in its historical setting, the novel captures an unmistakably contemporary malaise, encompassing generational schisms, living to work and constricting social norms" - * Dazed *

"Wambugu writes with a wry lucidity that blooms into the occasional zinger. There is an obvious comic talent here, lying in wait behind Ruth's tight-lipped severity. But then the comic and the serious are not opposites either: they are as interdependent as love and hate." - * Literary Review *

"Extraordinary . . . Wambugu writes with an easy wit, her sentences as approachable as her deeply relatable narrator . . . as Ruth grows up and into an independent perspective whose outlines can finally be distinguished from those of the people she grew up with, it's the specificity of this young woman's mind, the contours with which she draws the characters and environments around her, that make Lonely Crowds exceptional . . . Wambugu shows that the state of devotion can be more about the giver than the receiver" - * New York Times Book Review *

"A book of obsession and quiet brutality, interrogating what it means to chase goals - artistic success, fulfilling friendships - that may, ultimately, hold no real value" - * Los Angeles Review of Books *

"Perhaps the most prevailing myth about childhood friends is that they know each other completely and love each other best. Wambugu counters such sentimentalism by revealing the many secrets and misunderstandings at the core of Ruth and Maria's friendship. In their world, a lifelong bond is not a comfort but a liability" - * Atlantic *

"[An] uncommonly elegant debut novel . . . Wambugu's prose has a propulsive, almost hypnotic drive, and she knows how to keep it moving, getting through about as much time in one book as [Elena] Ferrante does in three . . . a thrilling and capacious novel about intimacy and artmaking in which the narrator proves to be more compelling than her muse" - * The Cut *

"Masterful, thoughtful . . . In short, blunt sentences, the book devastatingly portrays the realities of money, race, sexuality, ambition - long with the gossipy competitiveness of any insular scene - that both Ruth and Maria confront in New York . . . one of the most emotionally and intellectually rich debuts I can remember reading in this or any year" - * Boston Globe *

"Writing beautifully about ambition, class, art, domesticity, identity, and complacency, Wambugu's prose is as striking as it is sure. A heartbreaking and penetrating coming-of-age debut" - * Kirkus Reviews *

"The debut novel from Stephanie Wambugu makes a compelling case that friendship between girls - that thorny source of envy, love, and obsession - is an eternal narrative wellspring . . . This is a propulsive story about what it means to grow up with someone" - * Vulture *