How to Excavate a Heart

Shani plans to spend her winter break concentrating on a paleoichthyology internship in Washington, D.C., rather than the girlfriend who has just dumped her. Meeting May begins badly when Shani and her mother nearly hit her with their car. A dog-walking job brings the two young women back into each other’s lives, and Shani’s carefully limited plans become harder to maintain. Being snowed in together on Christmas Eve makes their attraction difficult to ignore. But the possibility of a new relationship also revives the pain of the old one. This young adult romantic comedy follows a Jewish college student weighing a temporary escape against the risk of becoming vulnerable again.