Wanting to die after a punishing SoulCycle class may not be unique, but Agnes's resolve to find someone to actually murder her is. As the misfit socialite goes about one frenetic New York City day, she evaluates a handful of would-be killers: her stone-cold magazine editor, a Craigslist arms dealer, a politician she once dated, her novelist boyfriend. A fast-paced stream-of-consciousness fever dream that feels like a front-row seat to her unraveling.

People Magazine, "Best Books of June 2026"

An astonishing debut as mesmerizing as it is unnerving. Like a surreal film it unfolds before us vivid as a nightmare from which we are unable to look away; by turns wildly funny, harrowing, and moving.

Joyce Carol Oates, National Humanities Medal, NBCC's Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award, and National Book Award-winning author of FOX

There's plenty of reference catnip for a niche reader in this hip, propulsive tale . . . [Newton's] style is electrically distinctive. In pyrotechnic passages, she recreates the vibe and tenor of an internet that's just on the edge of turning sour. Sentences that fizzle and scorch will also appeal to fans of Jade Sharma and Mary Robison, other bards of women on the absolute verge. Agnes is emphatically not for everyone, but I was thrilled . . . to encounter this voice.

Literary Hub

A blistering manifesto of a book that crams so much into its pages; a kind of reverse American Psycho telling the story of one woman downtrodden by mid-2010's rat race existence in New York. As wild, unexpected, and original as a hypnotic Instagram spiral, it's hard to believe this is a debut novel.

The Southern Bookseller Review

[A] whirlwind, wholly original debut novel . . . Told strictly in Agnes' voice (even the dialogue is one-sided), this is a deep dive into a millennial mind in free fall. It's dark but also funny, disturbing yet identifiable, and while it goes off the rails toward the end, it's a trip worth taking.

Booklist

It took me a minute to pick up on this novel's sly humor, but once I did, I was all in . . . The novel, which chronicles New York City life in the 2000s and 2010s for an unhappy privileged person, reminds me of Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation, except that it does an even better job at making fun of the hipster era.

Publishers Weekly, "PW Picks"