Author Anne Kim skillfully weaves heart-rending stories of young people navigating early adulthood alone, in communities where poverty is endemic and opportunities almost nonexistent. She then describes a growing awareness—including new research from the field of adolescent brain science—that “emerging adulthood” is just as crucial a developmental period as early childhood, and she profiles an array of unheralded programs that provide young people with the supports they need to achieve self-sufficiency.
A major work of deeply reported narrative nonfiction, Abandoned joins the small shelf of books that change the way we see our society and point to a different path forward.
The author of Abandoned: America’s Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection (The New Press), Anne Kim, is a writer, lawyer, and public policy expert with a long career in Washington, DC–based think tanks working in and around Capitol Hill.