Fruit Fly Fruit Fly

Fruit Fly

A Novel

    • 4.4 • 126 Ratings
    • $9.99

Publisher Description

New York Times Bestseller

USA Today Bestseller

“A seething, hilarious, and wildly shrewd takedown of modern identity culture.”
—Caro Claire Burke, author of Yesteryear

“Impeccable, courageous and true.”
—Ocean Vuong, author of The Emperor of Gladness

Go gay. Go sad. Go dark.

A washed-up author will stop at nothing to claw her way back to relevancy—even if it means appropriating a young gay man’s tragic story.


Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer’s block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she’ll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike—and fast.

Enter Leo. He’s a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for. 

Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo’s story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it’s her story—she’s the one who wrote it, after all. 

But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story. 

A razor-sharp satirical thriller, Fruit Fly will appeal to fans of R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface and Yomi Adegoke’s The List.

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2026
August 4
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
384
Pages
PUBLISHER
CROOKED LANE BOOKS
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
6.6
MB

Customer Reviews

Freddy Samwise ,

Lots to like, with a grain of salt

I really enjoyed reading this, and it plugged along nicely. The 2-POV format keeps the narrative brisk and alive as Leo is slowly revealed to be a layered and complex character. Overall, very enjoyable as a pseudo psychological thriller.

“Pseudo” - Mal and Leo, while superficially complex, are also broad archetypes, and the cast of characters surrounding them are 1 dimensional and serve plot more than truth. This did not detract from the enjoyment of the read, but did rob the book of meaning and depth that I believe was available and squandered. Thus, what might have been a study of class, gender, sexuality, addiction… ends up as a more of a beach read.

Personally, I love a beach read and am unhesitatingly recommending this book, but I miss what it might have been.

Ist22214 ,

Fun read

Grabs you right from the beginning. I finished it over the weekend. I thought the last part of the book could have used some more polishing.

epopovitz ,

A Good Book to Read on a Rainy Day

The twists and turns were unexpected and thrilling. Started as one thing and morphed into another. The intrusive thoughts win in this book.

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