Trying To Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel

Rips's delightful memoir will amuse readers of all ages. Her eccentric childhood, spent growing up in an apartment in the famous Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, is described with wit and humor. Spanning from preschool entrance to the end of eighth grade, her work addresses her struggle to make friends and fit in at school. The insightful anecdotes are so well-done that readers will assume that Rips is an adult, but the teenage author graduated from high school in 2016 and this is her first book. Young adults will hope that a sequel covering her years at La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts is forthcoming and wonder if she is as funny in person as she is on the page. The tenants of the Chelsea are not the famous ones of the past, but those portrayed were important for the young girl, whose parents did not arrange the usual playdates. Rips's parents are depicted as creative optimists from the Midwest, and, fortunately for readers, her father tired of her troublesome tales about school and suggested that she write them down instead of complaining.