Choices. Dreams. Delusion.
  • Sad Girl Novel
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Sad Girl Novel

Pip Finkemeyer


A young woman tries to figure out if she’s the best (a creative genius) or if she’s maybe just the worst (completely delusional).

I’d be in heaven but on the edge of a deeper misery than ever, I’d be on top of the world and then they’d ask me, Did you make the right choice Kim? Are you currently, still, making the right choices Kimberly Mueller?

Over the course of a year in Berlin, an aspiring novelist, Kim, and her historian best friend, Bel, confront their twin acts of creation.

Kim is becoming a writer, and is determined to write a bestseller. She's been convinced of this idea by Matthew, an American literary agent who is as emotionally unavailable as he is handsome (very). Kim lives in her own carefully constructed reality, which her imagination is constantly pumping full of hot air. As she attempts to buoy herself using other people for external motivation, they poke holes in her fantasies, leading her to wonder if she’s going to come crashing down or somehow stay afloat.

Meanwhile, Bel is becoming a mother, and gives birth, certain it will fulfil her in ways her career does not seem to. Kim and Bel support and deceive each other as only the best of friends can.

In the face of probable failure, how do we convince ourselves to try and become something anyway? And how do we live with the choices we make?

About the Author

Pip Finkemeyer's fiction has been listed for the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, the Disquiet Literary Prize and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She co-founded the Berlin-based zine Nothing To See Here, and completed a Masters in Publishing and Editing at RMIT. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne and Sad Girl Novel is her first novel.

Praise

‘a stroke of genius’ – Diana Reid, author of Love & Virtue and Seeing Other People

 

wildly amusing, sharply relevant’ – The Australian

 

‘extremely relatable’ – Sydney Morning Herald

 

Brilliant.’ – Daily Mail UK

 

‘Pip Finkemeyer has drawn such a unique, funny and painfully astute character in Kim. I could keep reading her inner monologue forever. It is rare to pick up a novel so simultaneously hilarious and moving. I loved it.’ – Laura Kay, author of Wild Things and Tell Me Everything

 

‘Relatable AF.’  – Pedestrian.TV

 

‘Both inhabiting and deconstructing the genre, it’s meta and twisty, with a wry narrative voice.’ – The Guardian

 

‘a humorous, heartfelt novel about finding one’s identity and purpose, the expectations held against you, and following your dreams even if it means stepping out of your comfort zone.’  – Readings Monthly

 

This book is a labour of writerly love, devoted to projects conceived and delivered.’ – ArtsHub

 

‘Finkemeyer offers a beautifully crafted character with all the flaws we've come to embrace in our modern heroines.’  – The Age

 

‘a punchy satire’ – The Saturday Paper



‘funny debut’ – The Age

 

‘glittering with acute and often funny observations about the ups and downs (mostly downs) of being an aspiring writer — or an aspiring anything, really’ – The West Australian

 

ISBN
9781761152023

Format
Paperback

Cost
$34.99

Pub Date
June 2023

Extent
304pp

Rights
ANZ

Category
Fiction

Themes
Friendship. Ambition. Self-awareness.