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Crushmore

Essays on Love, Loss, and Coming-of-Age

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About this listen

Known for spotlighting your favorite artists' tween stories of self-discovery on their podcast, Penn, Sophie, and Nava turn inward to share their own experiences for the first time. Penn, a twelve-year-old, Discman-toting introvert, starts in the solitude of his only-child household, where he danced like no one was watching (because no one was watching) before embarking on a neon-lit journey to Hollywood.

Sophie takes us to her middle school in Beijing, where she had to ward off rumors of a boob job, and to the moment loosening her choke hold on love brought her husband straight into her living room.

Nava traces the emotional aftershocks of losing her mother and guides us through the whimsical world of an imaginationship, where nothing is ever as it seems.

With compassion, humor, and insight, Crushmore charts the often cringey, sometimes luminous path from adolescence to adulthood. Together, these essays remind us that we can find healing-and even inspiration-from our awkward adolescent selves long after we thought we left them behind.

©2025 Crushmore, LLC (P)2025 Headline Publishing Group Limited Entertainment & Celebrities Essays Friendship Parenting & Families Relationships Teenagers Witty
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So moving but also very funny. I was brought to tears hearing Penn’s guilt about surviving Hollywood when so many of his friends didn’t but also laughed out loud in public hearing him explain why he couldn’t refer to his childhood as lonely. Great listen.

Heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measure

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There isn't one thing I didn't like about this book. The stories are relatable and moving. I laughed, cried, wept even, and genuinely was engrossed in the stories from start to finish. The authors read their parts really well. Penn landed all his jokes, Sophie's emotional performance of the essay on her relationship with her sister left me with tears, and I related heavily with all of Nava's stories and wept and wept at the heartake of losing her mother like it was the first time I was learning she died. Have to order the physical copy to keep.

Truly relatable!

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