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Agnes Lives!
Not yet published
Expected 23 Jun 26A day-in-the-life debut novel about a fading socialite on the hunt for someone to kill her before her next SoulCycle class.
New York City, 2014: a place of gleaming towers, boutique fitness, designer handbags and, of course, existential despair. As Agnes wipes away the sweat from her early-morning SoulCycle class she resolves that before her next lesson she will find someone happy to murder her. Over the course of the following twenty-four hours, as she moves from apartment to office to bar to Barney's, she scrolls from one contender to the next: an ice-cold magazine editor, a Craigslist gun dealer, an older politician she dated as a teen, her cruel novelist boyfriend. As she does so, a portrait emerges from the loops and spools of her thought: of a place between beauty and rot, of a time between confidence and collapse, and of a woman between desire and destruction.
Written in exhilarating, shocking prose, Agnes Lives! is an extraordinary debut novel from one of the most exciting new writers at work today, detailing everything chic, everything sexy and everything terrifyingly, crushingly depraved about a culture totally hung up on image.
New York City, 2014: a place of gleaming towers, boutique fitness, designer handbags and, of course, existential despair. As Agnes wipes away the sweat from her early-morning SoulCycle class she resolves that before her next lesson she will find someone happy to murder her. Over the course of the following twenty-four hours, as she moves from apartment to office to bar to Barney's, she scrolls from one contender to the next: an ice-cold magazine editor, a Craigslist gun dealer, an older politician she dated as a teen, her cruel novelist boyfriend. As she does so, a portrait emerges from the loops and spools of her thought: of a place between beauty and rot, of a time between confidence and collapse, and of a woman between desire and destruction.
Written in exhilarating, shocking prose, Agnes Lives! is an extraordinary debut novel from one of the most exciting new writers at work today, detailing everything chic, everything sexy and everything terrifyingly, crushingly depraved about a culture totally hung up on image.
256 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication June 23, 2026
8 people are currently reading
5150 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 24, 2026
I truly feel gaslit by this book. 4 and 5 star reviews, yet it felt like reading an extended version of the short stories I listened to in my undergrad creative writing workshops. I’ve never been so excited to be done with a first person POV—it was like reading one long fever dream (and not in the way I usually enjoy).
May 3, 2026
Agnes Lives! and I am basically indifferent that she ever did, and somewhat wish that I could’ve potentially used the approximately 2.5 hours I spent reading this in wiser, more valuable ways. I’m quite frankly getting tired of authors and publishers expecting us to potentially spend $18-$29 on books that ultimately feel like first drafts or writing exercises. Yes, I read the ARC not the final draft, but this needs copious amounts of linguistic tidying and actual meaning and coherence given to the narrative to make it feel like a worthy focus of my time. These unlikable, incoherent, vapid, self serving and out of touch female characters are starting to get really old and increasingly dangerous for us to be perpetuating in media in our currently already anti-intellectual society that is regressing to be less and less “politically correct” every second. I know there are going to be a good handful of people who like this book, probably the same people who still support the show Euphoria, but personally I am less and less enthused day by day with this current trend of pointless provocation and crude shock factor used constantly as a crutch in today’s media. And I mean it could be argued that shock value is nothing new, which it definitively isn’t, or that “it’s not that deep” and that media doesn’t necessarily have to have a underlying through line of deeper meaning to be worth consuming, but I feel otherwise in the media I choose to consume, and I think it more often should be made out to be that deep, and that media should have some kind of valuable imparted meaning even when prioritizing itself more as entertainment over something that is more purposely conducive to mindful engagement. I want to care! Make me care!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
If these men from Instagram still like my photos and I still have their numbers, maybe they’d meet me, like Yiannis did, and one of them will kill me. Images and phone calls, that’s all I need. Derrida, death of the written word. I wish I thought in images. Instagram is my best friend. Everything I don’t have and filled with people I’ll never know and never be, all who—of whom—are urgently changing their lives.
When announcing the North American rights for this debut novel – the US publisher described it as being about an “unhinged, fame-adjacent, shopaholic socialite as she traverses New York City one day in 2014 looking for someone to kill her” – which is an excellent description of this rather wild novel, perhaps missing out only its stream of consciousness narrative style and its social-media-scrolling interludes.
Agnes Maurer is in a relationship with a famous novelist, and herself works at a upmarket magazine – and we follow her one 2014 day starting with her 0630 spinning class where she gets rather intimately involved with the saddle and worries about her recent lip fillers all the way through to 0530 the next morning as she runs to another potential class. And across that day she tries to find someone to kill her in what appears to be an attempt at a performative death – taking in her cold-blooded editor and a designer table knife, an ex-boyfriend now politician, an attempted gun purchase online (which ends with her only being able to afford drugs) and then a Craigs List trade for a gun all via shops, scrolling and sexual musings, as well as a series of attempts to get someone to watch a movie with her and much more (much of which I think was rather lost on me).
Blurbs and early reviews I have seen compare this to: Moshfegh’s “Year of Rest and Relaxation” – although I would say there that a more accurate comparison by far would be the luxury-good and cleaning-rather-than-dirt Moshfegh inspired narrative of Yasmin Zaher’s 2025 Dylan Thomas Prize winning “The Coin”. I would also throw in the first half of this year’s Booker judges Patricia Lockwood’s 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize winning “No One Is talking About This” in its relentless energy and specifically its attempts to capture social media (although more Twitter in Lockwood’s work and Instagram here).
This is I think a novel which will largely depend on the reader’s reaction to and interest in the narrator’s voice and the areas of interest. The author I think draws on her own fame-adjacent experience – she was co-screenwriter on “At Any Prize” a crime drama film which competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, and I have to say that world as well as the world of high-end shopping are not ones that really interest me. I did find the New York colour resonant (particularly the sections in Midtown) but overall did not think I was the right target audience for this distinctive novel.
My thanks to Fig Tree, Penguin General UK for an ARC via NetGalley and paper ARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I'm someone who would never yuck someone else's yum; I truly believe the great thing about art is that there's something for everyone out there, and just because something doesn't resonate with me doesn't mean it lacks value or is objectively bad. I also feel like there's enough negativity in the world and if I'm not feeling something, I'll generally keep it movin' and that's that. However, given that NetGalley was kind enough to give me an ARC, needs must...
Friends, I hated this to my core. I read it at speed just so I could get to the end and see how much worse it could get. I knew nothing about the author, but reading this, knew straight away that she was a NYC transplant, especially given the fact that she felt the need to fill every page with mentions of every possible New York landmark, restaurant, shop, etc. Lo and behold, I was right. That isn't a crime in and of itself, but this entire novel reads like a high school creative writing class exercise that's so pretentiously faux-shallowly written (if that makes sense) and the characters were replaced with caricatures and what could have been an interesting premise was just destroyed by terrible writing, an obnoxious narrator, and overwrought, underedited insanity for the sake of it.
I love crazy women narrators! I love mental breakdowns and a tendency towards self-destruction! But this was just... not good.
There will be an audience that finds this subversive and quirky, and good for them, but I haven't been that person for about 20 years, so I'm afraid this one wasn't for me.
Friends, I hated this to my core. I read it at speed just so I could get to the end and see how much worse it could get. I knew nothing about the author, but reading this, knew straight away that she was a NYC transplant, especially given the fact that she felt the need to fill every page with mentions of every possible New York landmark, restaurant, shop, etc. Lo and behold, I was right. That isn't a crime in and of itself, but this entire novel reads like a high school creative writing class exercise that's so pretentiously faux-shallowly written (if that makes sense) and the characters were replaced with caricatures and what could have been an interesting premise was just destroyed by terrible writing, an obnoxious narrator, and overwrought, underedited insanity for the sake of it.
I love crazy women narrators! I love mental breakdowns and a tendency towards self-destruction! But this was just... not good.
There will be an audience that finds this subversive and quirky, and good for them, but I haven't been that person for about 20 years, so I'm afraid this one wasn't for me.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Five stars.
“I feel like we as a society should wash our hands more often.”
Hallie Elizabeth Newton’s debut novel is both hypnotizing and exhilarating. We meet the protagonist, Agnes, at 6:30 am while she is in her SoulCycle class, sweating, noticing the lip filler inside her lips, feeling the bike’s saddle under her. She wants you to know: before tomorrow’s spin class, she will be dead. Or at least, that's the plan.
Through a constant stream of consciousness we get to know her. Agnes wants to be the best and, most of all, she wants to be loved. Sometimes she’s relatable, most times she’s insufferable, I got second-hand embarrassment a few times, but I loved every moment of following her journey.
Once I started reading this novel, I was unable to put it down. The writing is captivating, making me constantly wonder what would happen next. Even though the novel is less than 300 pages long, it managed to explore so many interesting themes, such as the impact of plastic surgery on women’s self-confidence, the emptiness of temporary satisfactions, and the violence men perpetrate against women.
Overall, amazing character writing. Really enjoyed this debut novel. Looking forward to reading more by this author.
“It’s enough to make me jump out the window. But see, the city-proof windows don’t open.”
ARC kindly given by the publisher. All opinions are my own.
“I feel like we as a society should wash our hands more often.”
Hallie Elizabeth Newton’s debut novel is both hypnotizing and exhilarating. We meet the protagonist, Agnes, at 6:30 am while she is in her SoulCycle class, sweating, noticing the lip filler inside her lips, feeling the bike’s saddle under her. She wants you to know: before tomorrow’s spin class, she will be dead. Or at least, that's the plan.
Through a constant stream of consciousness we get to know her. Agnes wants to be the best and, most of all, she wants to be loved. Sometimes she’s relatable, most times she’s insufferable, I got second-hand embarrassment a few times, but I loved every moment of following her journey.
Once I started reading this novel, I was unable to put it down. The writing is captivating, making me constantly wonder what would happen next. Even though the novel is less than 300 pages long, it managed to explore so many interesting themes, such as the impact of plastic surgery on women’s self-confidence, the emptiness of temporary satisfactions, and the violence men perpetrate against women.
Overall, amazing character writing. Really enjoyed this debut novel. Looking forward to reading more by this author.
“It’s enough to make me jump out the window. But see, the city-proof windows don’t open.”
ARC kindly given by the publisher. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Agnes Lives! is a novel about 24 hours in the mind of a woman in New York City who has decided she wants someone to kill her. Agnes has a creative boyfriend who belittles her, a job at a magazine, and an image to uphold through shopping and daily SoulCycle. One morning she decides to find someone to kill her, but it turns out to be difficult.
This is a novel hoping to have an impact through its stream of consciousness writing style and stark tale of a desperate privileged woman, clearly trying to fit into the 'weird girl lit' trend. At the same time, it is self-consciously in conversation with American Psycho, so much so that Agnes thinks about not only it, but also Bret Easton Ellis and Donna Tartt within her narration. I didn't find it as effective at getting across what it is was satirising as American Psycho is, with my lack of knowledge of 2014 New York City culture feeling like a limitation, but I do like the concept of her trying to find someone who will kill her as a different take on Easton Ellis' novel.
I did find that the book dragged as I was reading it, even with its fast pace thanks to the narrative style, maybe due to it feeling quite one note. I think if you like that note, it is a more hard-hitting novel, but to me the book felt a bit tame and not as shocking as I think it wanted to be.
This is a novel hoping to have an impact through its stream of consciousness writing style and stark tale of a desperate privileged woman, clearly trying to fit into the 'weird girl lit' trend. At the same time, it is self-consciously in conversation with American Psycho, so much so that Agnes thinks about not only it, but also Bret Easton Ellis and Donna Tartt within her narration. I didn't find it as effective at getting across what it is was satirising as American Psycho is, with my lack of knowledge of 2014 New York City culture feeling like a limitation, but I do like the concept of her trying to find someone who will kill her as a different take on Easton Ellis' novel.
I did find that the book dragged as I was reading it, even with its fast pace thanks to the narrative style, maybe due to it feeling quite one note. I think if you like that note, it is a more hard-hitting novel, but to me the book felt a bit tame and not as shocking as I think it wanted to be.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Fuckkkkkkkkkk
Ok babes, this is THE book for all of my unhinged lit loving queens out there. She’s a continuous stream of consciousness and absolute manic behavior, but I love dear, sweet Agnes all the same.
I have been BEGGGGGING Bloomsbury Publishing for access to this book for WEEKS! And yall, my anticipation did NOT let me down!!
So thankful to the pub, Hallie Elizabeth Newtown, and NetGalley for the advanced digital access before June 23, 2026.
Agnes is so desperately in search of someone to k!ll her. Yep. She’s done with life, but not in a weepy depressive manner, but rather she’s just seeking an artistic exit, as she feels to be a burden on her award-winning director of a boyfriend, her wealthy family, and the eclectic individuals within her posse. But instead of her request being fulfilled, what she accomplishes instead plummets her further into the depths of despair and solitude.
Agnes is living through one HUGE manic episode and we’re along for the ride. So buckle up, yall. Bc the journey is BUMPY, but so so fun.
Ok babes, this is THE book for all of my unhinged lit loving queens out there. She’s a continuous stream of consciousness and absolute manic behavior, but I love dear, sweet Agnes all the same.
I have been BEGGGGGING Bloomsbury Publishing for access to this book for WEEKS! And yall, my anticipation did NOT let me down!!
So thankful to the pub, Hallie Elizabeth Newtown, and NetGalley for the advanced digital access before June 23, 2026.
Agnes is so desperately in search of someone to k!ll her. Yep. She’s done with life, but not in a weepy depressive manner, but rather she’s just seeking an artistic exit, as she feels to be a burden on her award-winning director of a boyfriend, her wealthy family, and the eclectic individuals within her posse. But instead of her request being fulfilled, what she accomplishes instead plummets her further into the depths of despair and solitude.
Agnes is living through one HUGE manic episode and we’re along for the ride. So buckle up, yall. Bc the journey is BUMPY, but so so fun.
Read
May 1, 2026*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*.
Agnes Lives! follows Agnes who wants someone to murder her after she has done a SoulCycle class. She lives in New York City and is desperately trying to fit in. She does what she’s supposed to and tries to be quiet for her boyfriend so he doesn’t get sick of her. Over 24 hours she tries to find someone to murder her but none of the people she meets will do it or are good contenders.
This book is told in a stream of consciousness style as if we are in the mind of Agnes. This is fast paced and you just get thrown into the narrative. It was easy to understand Agnes and why she felt the way she did. She really tries to live her life in the way she is supposed to, like how she behaves around her boyfriend as she minimises herself. That said, I do struggle with this type of narrative as I find it to be quite choppy so this isn’t a new favourite for me.
Agnes Lives! follows Agnes who wants someone to murder her after she has done a SoulCycle class. She lives in New York City and is desperately trying to fit in. She does what she’s supposed to and tries to be quiet for her boyfriend so he doesn’t get sick of her. Over 24 hours she tries to find someone to murder her but none of the people she meets will do it or are good contenders.
This book is told in a stream of consciousness style as if we are in the mind of Agnes. This is fast paced and you just get thrown into the narrative. It was easy to understand Agnes and why she felt the way she did. She really tries to live her life in the way she is supposed to, like how she behaves around her boyfriend as she minimises herself. That said, I do struggle with this type of narrative as I find it to be quite choppy so this isn’t a new favourite for me.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This book is set in New York City in 2014 and follows Agnes Maurer, a former model, magazine staffer, and muse to her famous novelist boyfriend. The events of the book take place within a single day or so as she's trying to find someone willing to kill her before her next SoulCycle class.
This is genuinely one of the strangest books I've ever picked up and it's strange in a good way. Newton has a unique approach to the dialogue where we only ever hear Agnes's side of conversations, leaving you to piece together what the other person is saying. It made me feel trapped inside her head with her. Her stream of consciousness is chaotic and overwhelming, looping back through traumatic memories from her upbringing.
The ending is purely chaos and left me with so many questions.
(3.5.5)
This is genuinely one of the strangest books I've ever picked up and it's strange in a good way. Newton has a unique approach to the dialogue where we only ever hear Agnes's side of conversations, leaving you to piece together what the other person is saying. It made me feel trapped inside her head with her. Her stream of consciousness is chaotic and overwhelming, looping back through traumatic memories from her upbringing.
The ending is purely chaos and left me with so many questions.
(3.5.5)
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
3.75 stars! Stream of consciousness galore. At points, it felt like I WAS the character. You are truly deep inside of Agnes's head. Every single thought spews right at you. She was a captivating character to follow. At the same time, you are questioning her manic thoughts. It felt very fast for two reasons. First, it is a shorter book. Second, it takes place over 24 hours. I love this type of read; it feels more intimate when it's a shorter time period, truly diving deep into the character.
Thank you NetGalley, Bloomsbury USA, & Hallie Elizabeth Newton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Agnes Lives! is released on June 23, 2026!
Thank you NetGalley, Bloomsbury USA, & Hallie Elizabeth Newton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Agnes Lives! is released on June 23, 2026!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Would you kill me? Like, for five thousand dollars?
This one is all about the writing for me. We're in Agnes' head throughout and it's a manic, paranoid, weird place to be. The time checks throughout the text take us through 24 hours with this young woman: caught up in social media, obsessing about her SoulCycle class and her fillers, getting to know her and her dysfunctional relationships solely through her unstoppable stream of unfiltered thoughts and words. It's an impressive feat of writing, for sure, best read at breakneck speed, the way Agnes' life in unreeling.
Many thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Agnes Lives is a vivid, unpredictable journey into a troubled mind.
You get to know all about Agnes through her stream-of-consciousness as she tries to find someone in her life to kill her.
You'll see how fractured and frenzied Agnes is, and watch her life unravel at warp speed.
It was a good read and very engaging. I was fully immersed and read it in one day
Thank you, @netgalley, for the eArc.
You get to know all about Agnes through her stream-of-consciousness as she tries to find someone in her life to kill her.
You'll see how fractured and frenzied Agnes is, and watch her life unravel at warp speed.
It was a good read and very engaging. I was fully immersed and read it in one day
Thank you, @netgalley, for the eArc.
May 6, 2026
I really liked this one!
Feels like a gender swapped American Psycho.
Agnes’ anal retentive attention to minute details immediately reminded me of Patrick Bateman.
Both characters are wealthy New Yorker with this running internal monologue beneath their exterior of conformity but instead the desire to kill becomes a desire to be killed.
Also the humor was super fun.
Thank you to Bloomsbury USA | Bloomsbury Publishing to the Advanced Review Copy.
Feels like a gender swapped American Psycho.
Agnes’ anal retentive attention to minute details immediately reminded me of Patrick Bateman.
Both characters are wealthy New Yorker with this running internal monologue beneath their exterior of conformity but instead the desire to kill becomes a desire to be killed.
Also the humor was super fun.
Thank you to Bloomsbury USA | Bloomsbury Publishing to the Advanced Review Copy.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Follow sad, lonely, suffering Agnes as she tries to get someone to kill her in 24 hours before her next SoulCycle class.
Did I like Agnes or any characters in this book? No. Was it maddening? Yes. Was the pace breakneck? Yes. Was the stream of consciousness chaotic and over-the-top? Yes. Was I gripped to see how this train wreck ended, and did I devour it with haste? Absolutely.
Did I like Agnes or any characters in this book? No. Was it maddening? Yes. Was the pace breakneck? Yes. Was the stream of consciousness chaotic and over-the-top? Yes. Was I gripped to see how this train wreck ended, and did I devour it with haste? Absolutely.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
I enjoyed the book. Agnes Lives! is a stream of consciousness book. The reader gets to know her as she tries to find someone to kill her. The story takes place in one 24 hour period.
Review of advance copy
a hazy chaotic unintelligible fever dream
Review of advance copy
The CFF gave my aunt this book and she gave it to be because she “couldn’t make any sense of it” and I’m kind of with her; entertaining in its weirdness but also deeply skimmable until the end
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews