Set in the baronial Upper East Side apartment of Barry Barnacle, among giant aquariums, a sprawling shell collection, and a jungle room with a three-toed sloth and a macaque, this is the story of the six Barnacle daughters, aged ten to twenty-nine. As the story begins, one daughter has returned home secretly pregnant, and she and her sister are sneaking out at night to meet the Finch twins in the apartment downstairs, while Barry, the patriarch, has devised a challenge for his daughters: whoever can secure the future of the Barnacle line within the week will inherit his whole fortune.

A love story, a family chronicle, and a portrait of a city, A Taxonomy of Barnacles is "a confident and witty debut that brings to mind an eccentric combination of The Virgin Suicides and Little Women" (Kirkus Reviews).