"The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke" is a coming-of-age novel set in a biology lab in the summer of 1963 in Boston. Both the heroine, 19-year-old Bronwen, and America are suffering growing pains and soon all the standards of the past will be shattered as the Pill and the war in Vietnam change people's expectations forever. A shocking telegram forces Bronwen to choose between family and the temptations of her dazzling future in science, dangling just out of reach. The poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke provides a shield and a roadmap out of despair as Bronwen makes her choices.