The Obsessed

""Between the sexually repressed graduate students struggling to emote and the immortalization of some truly excellent memes, The Obsessed was an enthralling, irreverent read. I will be carrying our narrator’s ache that her friends 'didn’t know what it meant to love a book, a writer, or a stranger as much as I did' for a long time, maybe forever. What a relief and horror to learn there are more of us out there projecting our literary obsessions onto real people than you’d think."" —Ruth Madievsky, bestselling author of All-Night Pharmacy ""Astrid, the protagonist of Lizzie Buehler's witty debut The Obsessed, is afraid too many books are being written, but I'm so glad Buehler wrote this one. Equal parts barbed and charming, The Obsessed is a compelling portrait of a too-smart young woman trying to get out of her head, off her phone, and (terrifying!) into real life."" —Lily Meyer, translator, and the author of The End of Romance ""A sharp-witted and offbeat tale of obsession. I felt seen, mocked, and entirely transfixed. With an endearingly neurotic heroine who treats linguistic quirks and cosmic coincidences like holy relics, Buehler explores our frantic attempt to use shared sensibilities as a shortcut to the terrifying pinnacle of being known. It is a brilliant reminder that our obsessions are less about the fixation itself and more about our own secret, unmapped desires. . . . The perfect read for anyone who finds it easier to understand a book than a person."" —Caitlin Barasch, author of A Novel Obsession ""In this impressive debut, Lizzie Buehler chronicles obsessions—literary, romantic, as well as those that don’t fall into easy categories—with so much honesty and charm the reader almost forgets to be staggered by her intellect, her wide-ranging ideas and expertise on languages and literary cultures. The Obsessed is enjoyable, relatable, and filled with things to obsess over long after the novel is over."" —Jennifer Croft, translator, and the author of The Extinction of Irena Rey