On any other Wednesday evening, you might find local writer Sarah Grace McCandless at Bar Pilar, staging pictures with friends in the photo booth, or enjoying a drink at Larry’s Lounge, her favorite dive.

Tonight, you won’t find Sarah at either place. Instead, she’ll be at Olsson’s in Penn Quarter reading from her second book, The Girl I Wanted to Be. Whether she's already won you over with her memoir, Grosse Pointe Girl , or she's new to you, you’ll likely appreciate McCandless’ wry sense of humor and charisma even if you've never fantasized about the person you wanted to be.

The story is told from the point of view of an adolescent narrator, Presley Moran, who, “is very unsure of who she is, yet at the same time, doesn’t realize how much of her character has been defined.” She’s a high school freshman straddling the line between childhood and adulthood. According to McCandless, Girl conveys, “the point in your life when you stop seeing things as a kid and you start seeing things as an adult.”

Though it’s not autobiographical, the novel opens at the scene of a family reunion, a setting that parallels the turning point in Sarah’s youth, when things changed dramatically within her own family. “Everything flipped after that,” she recalls. Her parents divorced and her uncle died, among other things. In Girl, Sarah explores how major changes test family dynamics, as it did in the case of her own family.

Girl also shows the result of destructive choices through the character Betsi, in particular: Presley’s young aunt who harbors a weakness for reckless behavior, dangerous men, and alcohol. “Betsy may be an example of who I could have been had I made different decisions,” said McCandless.

Though Sarah compares her books to Joe Weisberg’s 10th Grade or Shawn McBride’s Green Grass Grace, she’s also been influenced by a more graphic medium: comics. As a former marketer for Dark Horse Comics, she knows the genre well. Her memoir, Grosse Pointe Girl, illustrated by Christine Norrie, is more referential to her love of comics than Girl is. Yet McCandless emphasizes that she continues to be inspired by them. Recently, she even wrote a graphic short story, "The Art of Letting Go" in Sexy Chix, a collection which includes work from Joyce Carol Oates and illustrations by Jill Thompson. “It’s the hardest thing I have ever written so far,” she said.

Sarah cites Michael Chabon as an author she particularly admires for writing about comics. Her appreciation for Chabon solidified when she met him at a point in her life when she began to take her own writing more seriously. Dark Horse set up a book signing in their booth at the Comic Con International 2002 conference, the year The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay debuted. When his book first came out, many people mispronounced his name. “CHA-bon. Cha-BON. No one knew, “ she said. Sarah took to calling him Cinnabon — like the bakery chain — and told him so when he arrived for the reading. “He laughed really hard,” she said. “I can’t believe I even told him.”

Does she see herself as the next Chabon? She laughed. “I’m way in the bleachers, while he’s on home plate,” she answered with the self deprecation that’s so much a part of Grosse Pointe Girl. Fans know better. On the field of young writers, Sarah Grace McCandless is one to watch.

Reading at Olsson’s Books, 418 7th St. NW. 7 p.m.