Book excerpt: Ensconced in the black hole between childhood and adulthood, a glorious degenerate-grade freedom endures. A rebellion from respectability. An anathema to normalcy. It is the type of defiance that’s hopeful—hurt by the world but looking to reconcile it. Enter Gogo Germaine and her girl gang of delinquents. As manic teens in the ’90s punk scene, they engage in a vivid spectrum of misbehavior—from truancy to tattoos to trespassing. Here, in the underbelly of adolescence, music is God and the rest is a rush of nihilism. Gogo and her friends stumble through sound and fury into questionable firsts at varying degrees of sobriety. Many of us blunder through that black hole. It is a point of universal convergence, manifested by divergent experiences. Gogo’s rebellion may look different from yours, but the soaring highs and visceral lows will be familiar.