We Run the Tides

Vida spins a spirited if uneven coming-of-age yarn around a girl’s disappearance in 1984 San Francisco. Eulabee, 13, is growing up in Sea Cliff, where she and her charismatic best friend, Maria Fabiola, along with their friends Julia and Faith, attend an elite all-girls school and know the neighborhood front and back. One day, while Eulabee is on the way to Faith’s house with the other three girls before school, a man in a white car asks her for the time. Differing accounts of what happened next cause a schism between Eulabee and Maria Fabiola, but shortly after, Maria Fabiola disappears. In Maria Fabiola’s absence, Eulabee becomes friendly with skateboarder Keith, and even gets up the nerve to invite him to a Psychedelic Furs concert. Their friendship eventually leads to a tragic denouement for all concerned, as more kids go missing and the truth finally comes out. Despite a bountiful final section set in 2019, in which Eulabee confronts her memories and the characters’ fates come full circle, the various threads don’t quite cohere. At its best, the novel channels the girlish effervescence of Nora Johnson’s The World of Henry Orient while updating Cyra McFadden’s classic satire The Serial, but it’s not quite enough to fully satisfy. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, Inc. (Feb.)