Ann-Marie is fresh out of love and a long way from happy. She surprise-tackles blind dates, is obsessed with raw meat, grinds out her cigarettes on available body parts and yo-yos dangerously between ingénue and hell-raiser. She’s infuriating. And hard to shrug off. British author Zoe Pilger’s debut novel is, she tells us, “a dark comedy about love, post-post feminism and being young in London.” Her tempestuous protagonist lurches from ironic hipster parties awash with cocaine to accidental talk-show appearances and into horrible sexual dalliances – all on the arm of an unlikely compatriot who wants nothing more than to redeem her. Pilger’s barefaced prose and startling characters will keep you riveted – disgusted, offended, but riveted. It’s our book of the moment and you gotta read it.
Published by Serpent’s Tail, Rs 1,258
Available at Amazon.in
