Name: Pretend I'm Dead
ISBN: 9781786074300

Jen Beagin

Mona is twenty-three, emotionally adrift and cleaning houses to get by. While handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a man she calls Mr Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways. In search of healing, she decamps to New Mexico for a fresh start, but always lurking just beneath the surface are the ghosts of her past, and the crushing legacy of a chaotic, destructive childhood. It seems running further away from her problems could just leave more inventive ways for them to find her.

Pretend I'm Dead

NAMED A BEST BOOK of the YEAR by O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE, REFINERY 29, and KIRKUS REVIEWS SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE Miranda July meets Mary Karr in this brilliant debut novel from Jen Beagin, Whiting Award winner and “one of the freshest voices I've read in years—funny, wise, whip-smart and compassionate” (Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins), about a cleaning lady on a quest for self-acceptance after her relationship with a loveable junkie goes awry. Jen Beagin’s quirky, moving, “frank and unflinching” (Josh Ferris) debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona—almost twenty-four, emotionally adrift, and cleaning houses to get by. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways. In search of healing, Mona decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs, all of whom have one or two things to teach her—the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. But always lurking just beneath the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she’s trying to disentangle herself, and the larger legacy of the past she left behind. The story of Mona’s journey to find her place in this working-class American world is at once hilarious and wonderfully strange, true to life and boldly human, and introduces a stunningly one-of-a-kind new voice in American fiction.

A Novel

Schroeter Noémie

Cassandra 

I was genuinely unsure about this one when I went into it, but was too curious about it to put it down. This book made me cringe multiple times, but it was a welcome discomfort because I enjoy marveling at how different peoples lives can be from each others. I will say I don’t feel this book is for everyone because it contains heavy subject matter, but as someone who thrives on dark humor I appreciated the way it approached trauma. Mona is apathetically hilarious in a way that you either get or you don’t. I also listened to this on audiobook at 2.0 speed and found the narrator to really bring out her characters sarcastic, odd, nonchalant persona in a way I wouldn’t have been able to properly project in my head.

Cindy Lieberman

Rounded up for originality and quirky humor. This is a black comedy about an aimless young woman who supports herself by cleaning houses. She imagines (and over-imagines) the lives of the owners while inserting herself in various ways into her surroundings.

Kath Lau

What a strange and funny read. It was quite hard for me to get into the story at first but eventually I got mesmerized with Mona's story. Can't wait to read Vacuum in the Dark. This book is not for everyone, that's for sure.

TW : drug addiction/abuse, self-harm, sexual assault/rape, suicidal ideation

Devin Mainville

This book landed on my radar after being compared to Fleabag – one of my favorite TV shows of all time. And Pretend I’m Dead, which follows cleaning lady Mona on a journey from falling in love with a junkie to moving out west to start a business, does share a similar dark humor and sexual frankness with that television masterpiece, but it wasn’t the strongest comparison I felt. Perhaps it was the desert setting or the cast of quirky, wholly realized characters, but it reminded me a lot of the Francesca Lia Block books I read as a teenager.

I always felt like I never quite “got” those books as a teen, and I’m not sure I entirely “got” this book either. But Block’s books have stayed with me for decades in a way most other books did not, and I feel like Pretend I’m Dead will as well.

Pretend I'm Dead

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