"'A coming-of-age story from someone who possibly came of age before her parents did' (Patricia Marx, New Yorker magazine writer), Trying to Float is a seventeen-year-old's darkly funny, big-hearted memoir about growing up in New York City's legendary Chelsea Hotel. The hotel may no longer be home to its most famous denizens - Andy Warhol, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, to name a few - -but the eccentric spirit of the Chelsea is alive and well. Meet the family Rips: father Michael, a lawyer turned writer with a penchant for fine tailoring; mother Sheila, a former model and renowned artist who matches her welding outfits with couture; and daughter Nicolaia, a precocious high school junior at work on a record of her peculiar seventeen years. Nicolaia is a perpetual outsider who has struggled to find her place in public schools populated by cliquish girls and loudmouthed boys. But at the Chelsea, Nicolaia need not look far to find her tribe. There's her neighbor Storme, a tall woman who keeps a pink handgun strapped to her ankle; her babysitter, Paris, who may or may not have a second career as an escort; her friend Artie, former proprietor of New York's most famous nightclubs. The kids at school might never understand her, but as Nicolaia endeavors to fit in she begins to understand that the Chelsea's motley crew could hold the key to surviving the perils of a Manhattan childhood. A fabulously compelling teen guide to New York City and a disarming, humble, heartfelt, and wise tale of coming-of-age memoir. Nicolaia Rips is a graduate of LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City. She has lived at the Chelsea Hotel her entire life"--Provided by publisher.