Nothing Serious
A Novel
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2.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
"Nothing Serious is an unflinching and incisive look at modern dating, womanhood, friendship, and obsession. Smith's unforgettable voice, wit, and cultural precision will make you crave her take on all contemporary quandaries." — Courtney Preiss, USA Today bestselling author of Welcome Home, Caroline Kline
A scintillating debut about a disillusioned tech executive who goes into an obsessive spiral when her best friend-—and longtime crush—is implicated in a woman’s death.
Edie Walker’s life is not going as planned. At thirty-five, she feels stuck: in her career, in her love life, and in her tiny San Francisco studio apartment. It doesn’t help that her best friend, Peter Masterson, is basically the über successful male version of her—and she’s hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with him. But when Peter breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, Edie thinks her life might finally be turning around. He’ll discover how toxic dating app culture is and realize that Edie has been right for him all along.
Except Peter almost immediately lands a date with Anaya Thomas, a gorgeous, whip-smart professor and writer of feminist literature who even Edie—reared in the culture of tech bros—is smitten by. Unlike the women Peter has dated before, Anaya is like an alternate reality version of Edie—one with shampoo commercial hair and a meaningful career, who definitely doesn’t spend her weekends scrolling social media alone in her apartment. It’s only a matter of time before Peter falls head over heels for this woman; Edie herself is infatuated—maybe even a little obsessed—after one meeting.
Then, Anaya is found dead in her apartment. Right after a date with Peter.
Driven by her near-fanatic love of Anaya’s work and a desperate need to prove Peter’s innocence, Edie begins searching for clues to what really happened that night. As her fixation on the investigation grows, so do her doubts in Peter. When the truth finally comes to light, Edie must decide where her loyalties lie, who deserves justice—and who deserves to be punished.
Provocative, tense, and compulsively readable, Nothing Serious is a shrewdly observed, astonishingly heartfelt debut combining a darkly funny takedown of online dating with an honest examination of the challenges women face every day—but don’t dare discuss—from a brilliant new voice in contemporary fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A San Francisco computer engineer fixates on a suspicious death in Smith's disquieting debut. Edie Walker, 35, hates both dating apps and being single, so when her longtime pal and crush, Peter Masterson, splits up with his girlfriend, Edie decides to confess her feelings and hope he reciprocates. Before Edie summons the courage, however, Peter starts dating Anaya Thomas, a stunning, self-assured feminist studies professor with whom Edie feels an immediate kinship. After reading all of Anaya's publications in an effort to "inhabit" the mind of the woman she believes to be a better version of herself, Edie is blindsided when Anaya fatally overdoses. Peter admits to Edie that he did drugs with Anaya the night she died, but swears she was fine when he left her. If that's the case, Edie wonders, then why do the police suspect foul play? The close third-person narration follows Edie's increasingly reckless quest for the truth. While her dogged obsession propels the plot forward, it's Smith's exploration of themes like feminine insecurity, self-erasure, and dating double standards that sets this apart from similar fare. Readers will be thinking about this long after they've turned the final page.
