After spending a year at a prison work farm for involuntary manslaughter, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson returns to his Nebraska hometown. With his mother gone and his father recently deceased, Emmett plans to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head West. But his plans are derailed when two friends from the work farm suddenly appear with a scheme of their own, forcing an unexpected journey to New York City.

Amor Towles immerses you into the 1950s with his richly descriptive literary novel about the madcap ten-day adventure of Emmett and Billy Watson. I quickly fell in love with the gorgeous multi-layered characters in The Lincoln Highway. On the cusp of adulthood and coping with feelings of abandonment, they each are struggling to understand their place in the world.