Hungered, Amanda Rizkalla
Hungered, Amanda Rizkalla
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Hungered
A Novel

Author: Amanda Rizkalla

Narrator: ​Ana Isabel Dow

Unabridged: 7 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/19/2026

Synopsis

For listeners of The House on Mango Street and We the Animals, this striking debut brings to life an unforgettable young narrator and the complicated, loving, cruel, and generous figures that make up her universe.

Sofia’s mother promises that soon she’ll have her own bedroom to decorate. Soon, too, she’ll be able to see her friends, go back to school, and eat the colorful, tempting cakes in the grocery store’s display case. For now, though, twelve-year-old Sofia lives with her mother and younger brother in their car. For now, Sofia’s days are a blur of freeways and strip malls as her mother searches for a safe place to park for the night. For now, Sofia tries to carve out a space and an identity for herself while grappling with her family’s disintegration.

This haunting and lyrical novel captures the fault lines of an existence marked by economic insecurity, exploring what it means to come of age during a moment of displacement. Beautiful, evocative, and emotionally charged, Amanda Rizkalla’s Hungered is an indelible ode to survival, memory, and the search for home in its many forms.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company

About Amanda Rizkalla

Amanda Rizkalla is a recent Steinbeck Fellow and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellow. She has been a writer-in-residence at Ragdale, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, Mountain Words, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Monson Arts, and the Blue Mountain Center. After graduating from Stanford University, she received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a Kemper Knapp Fellow. Her work has received support from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Laura on January 04, 2026

A stunning, devastating, heartbreaking novel that tackles housing insecurity, racism, abuse, class discrepancies, cruelty towards immigrants, and systems designed to work against mothers in this country. This is such a well-written, sad story that is unfortunately relatable to a lot of people. This......more

Goodreads review by Ellen on October 27, 2025

Told from Sofia’s point of view as her and her mother and brother leave her father and experience homelessness and scraping to get by, this was a raw play by play that touched my soul. Complete with the experience of being a girl in the world, friends, family, and more watching how Sofia and her fam......more

Goodreads review by Jenn on December 12, 2025

A heart wrenching reality of a homeless girl, Sophia, that endures living in a car with her Mom and younger brother. Suffering with too much time to think of both the good and bad times. This was a glimpse into their never ending struggle to live a normal life surrounded by cruel people. This is told......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on March 06, 2026

Hungered is a heart wrenching coming of age story told through the perspective of a young 12-year-old girl as her family navigates food insecurity, homelessness, and dysfunctional family dynamics among other social and economic issues. The author has done a wonderful job bringing these characters to......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on March 27, 2026

I was thrilled to win a copy of this book at LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review. I was eager to read this book. It was one that I really wanted to win. I entered to win in early February and was informed I’d won a copy on 2/26. I received the galley copy of the book on 3/24. The book’s ex......more

Quotes

“Told with raw emotion and unflinching honesty, Rizkalla’s powerful debut captures the heartbreak of a family in crisis and the quiet resilience of a young girl who can’t make sense of the world but still dares to dream.”
—Library Journal

“Hungered is a heartrending debut that transforms the invisible reality of housing insecurity into a story of profound humanity. Amanda Rizkalla has crafted a coming-of-age story that never romanticizes hardship, yet finds genuine beauty in small acts of grace and the irrepressible hope of childhood.”
—Shilpi Somaya Gowda, bestselling author of A Great Country and The Shape of Family

“In this impressive debut, Rizkalla magically gifts us Sofia, a fierce but vulnerable protagonist who serves as the glue in her disintegrating family. Rizkalla's narrator shines in these stunning vignettes that portray a family in crisis. As she navigates her landmine life and her own conflicted identity, Sofia sometimes takes charge and often takes risks—and you will cheer for her all the way.”
—Susan Muaddi Darraj, award-winning author of Behind You is the Sea

“In this captivating debut, Amanda Rizkalla presents the world as seen through the eyes of a young narrator grappling with the hard truths of a life filled with secrets, instability, and betrayal. Mixed in with these hard truths is the softness of adolescence, complete with first days of school, first friendships, and first crushes. At its core, Hungered is a story of survival—how we survive our childhoods, how trauma survives across generations, and how one family learns to survive unimaginable circumstances. This is a novel to return to when you’re searching for wonder in all the small places.”
—Kai Harris, award-winning author of What the Fireflies Knew

“On each page, Rizkalla’s precise and tangible rendering of image, of hope like candy floss, of familial bonds and betrayal—each sentence—is an opening to stay. Readers will devour this world, easily.”
—Dantiel W. Moniz, award-winning author of Milk Blood Heat

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