Make Sure You Die Screaming
A Novel
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
One of NPR's best books of 2025
Named one of the hottest debut novels of 2025 by Goodreads
"It’s Fear and Loathing for the generation devastated by the generation that brought us Fear and Loathing." —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby
An electrifying debut about a nonbinary corporate burnout embarking on a road trip from Chicago to Arkansas to find their conspiracy-theorist father, who has gone missing
The newly nameless narrator of Make Sure You Die Screaming has rejected the gender binary, has flamed out with a vengeance at their corporate gig, is most likely brain damaged from a major tussle with their now ex-boyfriend, and is on a bender to end all benders.
A call from their mother with the news that their MAGA-friendly, conspiracy-theorist father has gone missing launches the narrator from Chicago to deep red Arkansas in a stolen car. Along the way, the narrator and their new bestie—a self-proclaimed "garbage goth" with her own emotional baggage (and someone on her tail)—unpack the narrator’s childhood and a recent personal loss that they refuse to face head-on.
An unflinching interrogation of class rage, economic (im)mobility, gender expression, and the rot at the heart of capitalism, Make Sure You Die Screaming is the loud, funny, tragic, suspenseful road trip novel of our times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Carlstrom debuts with a disjointed blend of road-trip suspense novel and state-of-the-nation satire. A nameless narrator, inspired to drop their old name and gender after the sudden death of their best friend and decade-long advertising partner, steals their abusive ex-boyfriend's BMW and flees Chicago for Arkansas to visit their mother. When the narrator arrives, their mother claims that their far-right conspiracy theorist father has disappeared. To help find him, the narrator brings along their new friend, Yivi, a young "garbage goth" convinced her prophetic dreams of a cowboy in a tan sedan relate to her drug dealer ex's efforts to track her down. While throwing back a significant volume of booze, the pair awkwardly disclose some of their secrets to each other as they tear across the fraying nation. The novel is low on plot, with a few key details from the narrator's biography needlessly positioned as big reveals, but Carlstrom effectively conjures a dystopian atmosphere and shrewdly mines themes about the draws and dangers of self-definition. It's a wild ride with a few too many dead ends, but readers seeking something off the beaten path will enjoy themselves.
