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The Lonely Girl's Vegetable Patch
Not yet published
Expected 15 Sep 26A rural romp through bisexual awakening and obsessive love, as told by one unforgettably unhinged millennial.
Twentysomething and aimless in 2005, Drew moves to Vermont’s countryside and takes a job at a stable. Through the musings of her lovelorn trainer Tristan, she glimpses Cleo—his elusive ex, a woman seventeen years his senior who just opened a new coffee shop in town. Hungry for an indefinite more, Drew applies to work there and quietly lusts for her alluring new boss. As her slippery dynamic with Cleo begins to lose grip, Drew flails along her own boundaries, unsure where she ends and where Cleo begins.
Amid the wintry farmland, Drew’s want and anxiety flare against false peace, piqued by Cleo’s hidden appetite for reckless behavior. The web they weave around each other ensnares townspeople, tourists, and past and future lovers, until a wild experiment tests the sticky threads of their bondage. For fans of Big Swiss and Milk Fed, Genevieve Plunkett’s latest is an offbeat ode to losing yourself by going too far, written in masterful prose that balloons with longing.
Twentysomething and aimless in 2005, Drew moves to Vermont’s countryside and takes a job at a stable. Through the musings of her lovelorn trainer Tristan, she glimpses Cleo—his elusive ex, a woman seventeen years his senior who just opened a new coffee shop in town. Hungry for an indefinite more, Drew applies to work there and quietly lusts for her alluring new boss. As her slippery dynamic with Cleo begins to lose grip, Drew flails along her own boundaries, unsure where she ends and where Cleo begins.
Amid the wintry farmland, Drew’s want and anxiety flare against false peace, piqued by Cleo’s hidden appetite for reckless behavior. The web they weave around each other ensnares townspeople, tourists, and past and future lovers, until a wild experiment tests the sticky threads of their bondage. For fans of Big Swiss and Milk Fed, Genevieve Plunkett’s latest is an offbeat ode to losing yourself by going too far, written in masterful prose that balloons with longing.
296 pages, Paperback
Expected publication September 15, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
2026
June 7, 2026well….yes!
July 3, 2026
Gay and depraved Gilmore girls, in the best way possible.
July 10, 2026
horse girls make do!
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
** I received a digital review copy from the publisher, because I am a librarian and librarians are awesome **
3.5 stars, rounded up for Goodreads
I was lured in by the blurb, which promised a bisexual coming of age story set in what is supposed to be the early 2000s.
Honestly, this read like an extended short story that a creative writing major would have written in the early 2000s. The prose was enjoyable, as was the (what I'll generously call a) plot: a horny girl with family issues, adrift and looking for meaning, (maybe?) finds it in her manic pixie dream boss, Cleo. (Who she became obsessed with while having a dispassionate fling with Cleo's much younger ex while working together in a stable.) Drifts through existential crisis, (murder?) mystery, and dabbles in BDSM.
What do you call something that's odd and melancholy, explicit but not smutty in the 2026 sense? Basically an indie film of a book.
3.5 stars, rounded up for Goodreads
I was lured in by the blurb, which promised a bisexual coming of age story set in what is supposed to be the early 2000s.
Honestly, this read like an extended short story that a creative writing major would have written in the early 2000s. The prose was enjoyable, as was the (what I'll generously call a) plot: a horny girl with family issues, adrift and looking for meaning, (maybe?) finds it in her manic pixie dream boss, Cleo. (Who she became obsessed with while having a dispassionate fling with Cleo's much younger ex while working together in a stable.) Drifts through existential crisis, (murder?) mystery, and dabbles in BDSM.
What do you call something that's odd and melancholy, explicit but not smutty in the 2026 sense? Basically an indie film of a book.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
The Lonely Girl's Vegetable Patch is not a love story; instead, it's an offbeat exploration of unconsummated desire and obsessive longing. Plunkett deftly captures the emotional zeitgeist of millennials in the early aughts through Drew's social paralysis and inescapable disaffection with the world around her. With the unease and inevitability of a slow-motion trainwreck, Drew attempts to subsume herself into her boss's—Cleo's—life, losing herself to her burgeoning sexuality and to her desire for this older woman. The Lonely Girl's Vegetable Patch lays bare the misadventures of youth and the fundamentally human desire to be seen.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Favorite type of book
August 3, 2026
this warmed my Vermont farm girl heart and simultaneously disturbed me but wow it is great
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews