When teenager Nadine Harvey helps her best friend hide a disturbing secret, she’s also concealing her own deepest truth: she’ll do almost anything to be wanted. Five years and three thousand miles later, Nadine is thrilled when her idol, Celeste—a rock singer known as “the oracle”—befriends her.
As Celeste’s career begins to falter, she launches a bold program encouraging women to speak their truths. Nadine eagerly becomes her business partner, but as their ambitions clash, their alliance starts to unravel.
Determined to hide their growing rift, Celeste and Nadine invite their mothers to a high-profile awards gala. When painful histories resurface, each woman must confront how she sees herself—and how the world sees her.

Praise for The World to See

“Handler brings her trademark scything gaze and compassionate understanding of human nature to this vivid tale of two women navigating their relationships with their mothers, their entwined histories, and their music. Her nuanced exploration of how art, lies, and community shape female identity is lived out by characters so real, I had to remind myself that they were fictional. This is a powerful, compulsively readable story that will stay with me for a very long time.”

—Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Never Have I Ever and With My Little Eye

“When Nadine Harvey, recent college grad turned horticulturalist, finally grazes the trappings of celebrity-drizzled Los Angeles, she hits the jackpot: charged to tend the plants of a mysterious C. Davis, she finds herself alongside a glittering pool, listening to the guitar strains of her teenage idol, Celeste of Celeste and the Heart’s Desire. Celeste is a lonelier rock star than one might hope, and invites Nadine to collaborate with her on a project that will revive her career, but the partnership is not without its pitfalls. With this, her fourth book, Jessica Handler extends her range even farther: The World to See places both Nadine and Celeste in the tension of a present that depends very heavily on the secrets of the past. As both characters hatch a very surface-seeming plan to honor ‘the foremothers,’ the richly drawn narratives of their own, actual mothers intrude, making each woman plumb further depths. Readers are placed gently into a dramatic trajectory that is at turns surprising but ultimately satisfying, the yields of this novel reach far beyond the conclusion of a carefully woven plot. The World to See, rather, leaves readers with an understanding of how these characters have tendrilled their roots into the very meat of their hearts.”

—Jacinda Townsend, author of Trigger Warning and Saint Monkey

“The World to See is an intricately crafted portrayal of mothers and daughters felled by loneliness and longing for connection. Handler’s use of artful metaphors delights the reader while highlighting the complexities of female identity and relationships. These vivid characters exploring and claiming their stories will stay with you long after you finish the book.”

—Mimi Zieman, award-winning author of Tap Dancing on Everest

“Long before Taylor Swift, and even before Madonna, there was audacious and wildly talented Celeste on stage, telling the world what girls want. In this intricately braided story about daughters and mothers, with the female rocker’s art at its center, song carries the repressed desires that connect generations of American women. Jessica Handler has written a beautiful, searing tale of those who struggle between holding themselves back and pushing themselves forward—a tale of all women.”

—Parul Kapur, author of Inside the Mirror

“When a lonely plant-care worker named Nadine gets sucked into a fading rock star’s marketing campaign, she must confront her feelings of invisibility and lack of agency. To learn why, author Jessica Handler deftly jettisons her readers back a generation, revealing the oppression that stifled three women whose lives were nestled together in surprising ways: Nadine’s mother Helen as well as a woman who captured Helen’s heart, and Nadine’s musical mentor Celeste. Through masterful, poignant storytelling, Handler belts out a modern feminist anthem that’s sure to rattle the rafters and readers’ heartstrings.”

—Ginger Pinholster, author of The Snakes of St. Augustine and The Train to Santa Fe

"In her fourth book, The World To See, Jessica Handler peels back the personas of Celeste, a rock star on the decline, and Nadine, a fan on her way up, to reveal their motives and struggles to create their own identities by tracing their backgrounds through their mother’s lives and associated secrets. The book is a fascinating look at how sexual identity, visibility, and women’s issues changed during the turbulent 1950s to 1970s in America. It’s a compelling and entertaining read that is hard to put down."

—Vanessa Briscoe Hay, singer, Pylon, Supercluster, and Pylon Reenactment Society, “One of the 25 Best Frontwomen of All Time” (Paste Magazine)