Groovy Girl is a brash, so-raw-it's-still-bleeding story about the meaning of strength and who possesses it; about where truth hides and who is telling it; and about a feisty Filipino-American girl who artfully and gracefully—though at times awkwardly—steps out from under the long shadow of people we all grew up with, in search of her path and purpose.

Third grader Isabel "Isa" José is the youngest member of a Filipino family living in suburban Los Angeles. She chronicles the ongoing struggles and ennui of a stiflingly competitive environment, where the things that her family does to harm each other in the name of love and the pursuit of happiness are interrupted by that inexorable force called life.

The Josés are stunned by the diagnosis of colon cancer of 19-year-old wunderkind Makena, a whirling dervish of success. The daily grinds of their family life and strife are thrown into disarray, and for 8-year-old Isa, innocence is something lost before she realized she had it.

As always occurs with sudden grave illness in the family, routines are disrupted, and a new rhythm emerges. But will the gravity, darkness, and reality of a life-threatening disease shift the Josés into greater harmony, finding peace and happiness where little existed before? Or will they be ripped asunder beneath the pressure of surgeries, stressful feuds, and old grudges?

Little Isa, an inquiring mind for an 8-year-old, wants to know...

i.b. casey cui was born in a badass beach town in Southern California, and her ancestors hail from Madrid, Bilbao, Xiamen, and the western coast of the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

She earned her BA at UC Berkeley, where she studied human society and its social problems while taking cool courses like Tagalog and Pedagogy of Movement. At Mills College, she engaged in fiction and nonfiction writing workshops and was teased about kinda-sorta minoring in journalism with the undergrads, as well as serving as the tennis team's practice partner. She graduated with an MFA in English literature and creative writing.

She co-heads a private foundation whose mission advocates arts and language enrichment, literacy development, and the education of underrepresented children, along with the physical health and well-being of dogs.

She is a well-nigh 26-year colon cancer survivor. She's an enthusiast of stream of consciousness, sushi, Swedish Fish, sonatinas, and Snoopy.

She hopes to transition effortlessly from tennis to pickleball in the near future. She rediscovered piano 30 years after she stopped taking lessons.

She has enjoyed and continues to reread the works of Cleary, Camus, and Capote, just to name a few.

She also has become a recent fan of alliteration and unabashedly overuses it, overzealously. She writes haikus and tankas in her spare time, but only for select friends and family.

ms. i.b. casey cui owns residences and is a part of two cohesive communities in California and Utah, where she—together with her hairless yet handsome, hardworking hubster—is a co-parent to two yare and yappy boys. And: a gorgeously gleeful, godlike goldendoodle.