The marriage box: a novel

When Casey gets into trouble hanging out with the wrong crowd in New Orleans, her parents decide to move back to their Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn--where, swayed by the community's Middle Eastern values and her parents' traditional wishes, Casey marries Michael at eighteen, thinking she can adjust to Sephardic ways. But can she?
Casey Cohen, a Middle Eastern Jew, is a sixteen-year-old in New Orleans in the 1970s when she starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. When she gets in trouble, her parents decide to return to the Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. The Marriage Box is a real place, a pool deck designated for teenage girls to put themselves on display for potential husbands. Casey meets Michael, and she marries him at eighteen, believing she can adjust to Syrian ways. When she discovers that Michael doesn't want her to go to college, but have a baby instead, will Casey be able to integrate two opposing worlds? -- adapted from back cover