Porcupines by Fran Fabriczki (Penguin / Fig Tree)

Fran Fabriczki’s debut doesn’t bother with sentimentality. Right from the start, she introduces Sonia, a Hungarian immigrant in early 2000s Los Angeles, who’s just trying to get by, juggling rum-soaked birthday cakes and a handful of sketchy side gigs. 

Sonia’s tough, almost prickly, which matches the book’s title. The central friction arises when Mila, tired of being an only child in a two-person vacuum, discovers old emails and decides to find the father Sonia has scrubbed from their history. It is a story about the exhaustion of reinvention and the inevitable failure of keeping secrets from the people who share your DNA.

Sonia doesn’t wake up one morning transformed. Instead, her growth creeps in slowly, as she realizes that motherhood isn’t a one-way street. She tries to buy Mila’s happiness with after-school activities and fast food, hoping the chaos of American life will drown out any questions. Mila, meanwhile, is every bit the lonely sixth grader, clutching a “how-to-be-cool” guidebook to survive the minefield of middle school. Their relationship feels like an ongoing negotiation. Around them, PTA moms and ghosts from the Cold War pop up, each reflecting pieces of Sonia’s fractured sense of self.

The story bounces between the gray, heavy days of pre-1989 Budapest and the shiny glare of California. This back-and-forth isn’t just for scenery; it shows a deeper kind of immigrant fatigue: the hope that you can leave your old pain behind, only to discover that silence brings its own shadows. Fabriczki skips the usual “culture clash” stuff and goes straight for the heart, showing how loneliness doesn’t care about borders. In a world obsessed with ancestry and DNA kits, the book feels like it’s speaking directly to us. It keeps asking: Do we deserve to know our parents’ secrets, or do some stories need to stay buried if we want to survive?

Fabriczki’s prose is lean and observational, stripped of the decorative clutter that plagues many debut novels. The tone is witty but grounded, capturing the absurdity of Sonia’s "not-quite-illegal" ventures without turning her into a caricature. The storytelling is confident, using the emails as a catalyst that feels earned rather than forced. While the pacing occasionally slows during the historical transitions, these moments are necessary to understand Sonia’s defensive architecture. It is a rare book that manages to be funny while acknowledging the crushing weight of being an outsider in a place that demands you "fit in" without providing the manual.

Honestly, reading this made me think about how our parents are sometimes just strangers we live with. There’s a quiet generosity in Fabriczki’s writing, a kind of tough empathy for people who mess up while trying to do the right thing. 

The book is a sharp, honest look at what gets lost between generations. You might finish it and start wondering which parts of your own family story have been edited to protect you. If you’re after a novel that cares about honesty more than tidy endings, you’ll want to pick this up.

4/5