The Bored and the Beautiful

“What a thrill that Cat Marnell—one of our best living documentarians of addiction and the glamorous frivolities of New York—has at last given her fans a novel. A riveting portrait of the writer as a young woman, a book about the redemptive power of art itself, a hell of a read.”—Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind

“The Bored and the Beautiful is the brilliant crystallization of possibilities realized, a tabloid-noir of glam and struggle, a triumph of glitter in the streets ‘where rats turn into stars!’”—Nico Walker, author of Cherry

A downtown “it” girl falls for an influential journalist who pushes her addiction issues—with love, pills, and headlines—to the breaking point, in the intoxicating and propulsive first novel from the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir How to Murder Your Life.

Meet Dizzy Calatrava: blonde, brilliant, and perpetually one cigarette away from collapse. It’s 2012 and she’s a downtown writer with a tabloid presence, a narcotics habit, and a tendency to treat New York City like her own private paradise. Unreliable yet unforgettable, Dizzy pops amphetamine pills like Tic Tacs, drifting between Thai rehabs and rooftop afterparties like a sorceress in platforms, narrating the apocalypse of her thirties in prose so sparkling you can feel it burn your nose.

When Dizzy meets Editor-In-Chief, a charming, fellow media personality whose bad behavior only helps his star rise, she wonders if perhaps she’s met her true match. But is this a tale of two kindred flames igniting, or is Dizzy flying too close to the sun? The Bored and the Beautiful is a dark, feminine, and salacious glimpse into the mind of a lovable protagonist who you can’t help but root for as she makes every mistake you can imagine—and probably some you can’t.