“You ask too many questions. What's there to know, little idiot? You are born, you have some laughs and a rendezvous or two, and then you fall into the void. Just try to enjoy the ride, darling,” a grandmother advises the titular child narrator in Maria Kuznetsova's debut novel, Oksana, Behave! Mirroring the Ukrainian-American author's own life, the book charts the ups and downs of a family who emigrates from Ukraine to the wild, new frontier of a strange place called Florida. The family's travails are depicted by Kuznetsova with vibrant, descriptive prose and incisive detail.

Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; Thu., May 9, 7 p.m.; free. (310) 659-3110, booksoup.com.

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