We Never Asked for Wings: A Novel

From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Language of Flowers comes her much-anticipated new novel about young love hard choices and hope against all odds For fourteen years Letty Espinosa has worked three jobs around San Francisco to make ends meet while her mother raised her childrenmdashAlex now fifteen and Luna sixmdashin their tiny apartment on a forgotten spit of wetlands near the bay But now Lettyrsquos parents are returning to Mexico and Letty must step up and become a mother for the first time in her life Navigating this new terrain is challenging for Letty especially as Luna desperately misses her grandparents and Alex who is falling in love with a classmate is unwilling to give his mother a chance Letty comes up with a plan to help the family escape the dangerous neighborhood and heartbreaking injustice that have marked their lives but one wrong move could jeopardize everything shersquos worked for and her familyrsquos fragile hopes for the future Vanessa Diffenbaugh blends gorgeous prose with compelling themes of motherhood undocumented immigration and the American Dream in a powerful and prescient story about familyAdvance praise for We Never Asked for Wings ldquoI was hooked from the first breathtaking pages of We Never Asked for Wings caring about this exquisitely vulnerable family hoping right along with them on every page that each heart-rending impossible choice would lead them somewhere better togetherrdquomdashLisa Genova New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice ldquoVanessa Diffenbaughrsquos We Never Asked for Wings propels us into a motherrsquos heart as she and her family travel down a rocky path to understanding and forgiveness With breathtaking imagery and lyrical prose Diffenbaugh makes Lettyrsquos growth from a troubled young mother to a responsible woman who learns to put her children first but also allows herself the possibility of love entirely believable Hers is a hard-won victory you will cheer even as you wish this graceful moving book would never endrdquomdashMelanie Benjamin New York Times bestselling author of The Aviatorrsquos Wife Praise for Vanessa Diffenbaughrsquos The Language of Flowers ldquoCaptivating The Language of Flowers deftly weaves the sweetness of newfound love with the heartache of past mistakesrdquomdashMinneapolis Star Tribune ldquoAn original and brilliant first novel Diffenbaugh is a mesmerizing storytellerrdquomdashThe Washington Post ldquoFascinating Diffenbaugh clearly knows both the human heart and her plants and she keeps us rooting for the damaged VictoriardquomdashO The Oprah Magazine book of the week ldquoDiffenbaugh effortlessly spins this enchanting tale making even her prickly protagonist impossible not to loverdquomdashEntertainment Weekly ldquoCompelling immensely engaging unabashedly romantic an emotional arc of almost unbearable poignancerdquomdashThe Boston Globe.