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) in this hilarious debut for fans of Monica Heisey, Elif Batuman and Emma Jane Unsworth.

Maybe my main character will slowly lose their mind too. Novels usually need an abandoned woman going crazy in them. It's gonna be, like, a sad girl novel.

An Australian expat in Berlin, Kim is jobless, rootless, and - as she's slowly discovering - somewhat useless.

That is until a chance encounter with Matthew, a hotshot New York literary agent, gives Kim the direction she's been craving. This year she will:

* Finally write her novel

* Decide what said novel is actually about

* Romantically pin down the increasingly flighty Matthew

* Be less jealous of best friend Bel's baby

* Convince her therapist that the amount of artichokes she eats doesn't classify as an eating disorder

* Stay sane in the process of achieving the above

Because Kim's story will not become a sad girl novel.

Definitely not.

'While Kimberley Mueller spends a lot of time wondering whether she's talented, Finkemeyer need have no such doubts. Finkemeyer's narrator - with her gift for both self-delusion and self-awareness - is a stroke of genius. Sad Girl Novel achieves all we can ask of contemporary fiction: it mocks and sympathises in equal measure.' Diana Reid, author of Love & Virtue

(P) 2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited