The linked stories in Cara Blue Adams’s precise and observant collection offer elegantly constructed glimpses of the life of Kate. Place is a palpable presence: Boston in winter, Maine in summer, Virginia’s hillsides, the New Mexico sky. Along the way, we meet Kate’s difficult bohemian mother and younger sister, her privileged college roommate, and the various men Kate dates as she struggles to define what she wants from the world. Wryly funny and shot through with surprising flashes of anger, these smart, dreamy, searching stories show us a young woman grappling with social class, gender, ambition, violence, and the distance between longing and having.