A Catcher in the Rye for the ADHD Generation—raw, hilarious, and achingly real.

★ BOOKLIFE REVIEWS EDITOR'S PICK ★ KIRKUS REVIEWS "GET IT" ★ READERS' FAVORITE FIVE-STARS ★ WINNER 2025 FIREBIRD AWARD

What if your biggest mistake becomes your greatest adventure?

Meet Oscar: The Anti-Hero You Can't Stop Rooting For. He's brilliantly ADHD, defiantly beautiful in that melancholy-18-year-old-boy way, and absolutely not ready for the real world.

Meet Grammy: His Unlikely Wingman. She's 70-something, unapologetic, and done with everyone's BS.

Oscar Danielsson would rather hide in his room than face high school graduation. Between his spectacular mistakes, self-medicating his ADHD, and overwhelming existential dread, getting out of bed feels as hard as getting into Northwestern. His only real friend? His aging spaniel, Enzo. His biggest fear? Everyone discovering he's not nearly as promising as they expect. But after one too many mistakes, everything goes sideways.

A scrape with the law he can barely remember mysteriously launches Oscar on a bumpy cross-country road trip with the last person he expects: his free-wheeling Grammy who's tired of playing by the rules. Leaving behind the girl he's falling for ("adorkable" Bette), his beloved dog, and all his comforting vices, Oscar discovers that even a messy journey based on a lie can lead to the most honest destination.

A modern-day Catcher in the Rye meets Harold and Maude with an ADHD twist.

Raw, hilarious, and achingly real, Promising Young Man captures the authentic confusion of being young, brilliant, and different in today's America. This isn't just another coming-of-age on the road story—it's a hopeful journey about finding your tribe when you stop trying to fit in, told with an emotional honesty that will melt, break, and repair your heart.

"Axel's writing crackles with energy and hard-won insight, capturing Oscar's inner monologue in a way that feels both authentic and deeply relatable." — BookLife Reviews (Editor's Pick)

"Oscar is breathtakingly real and appealing, wrestling with his feeling of being 'defective' as well as his past, while staring down a future that feels empty and volatile. His grandmother is a counterbalance to those dark themes, serving as a rollicking, entertaining prod for Oscar's growth." — The BookLife Prize

"Books like Promising Young Man need to be on school curricula." — Readers' Favorite (5-Stars)

"It's a deft portrait that sidesteps stereotypes with sensitivity and skill." — Kirkus Reviews ("Get it")

Promising Young Man is dark humor, road trip adventure, intergenerational friendship, and ADHD representation done right. Perfect for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, A Man Called Ove, and anyone who believes promising means being beautifully, imperfectly human.