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Hysteria
In HYSTERIA, we meet a young woman an hour into yet another alcohol-fueled, masochistic, sexual bender at her local bar. There is a new bartender working this time, one she hasn't seen before, and who can properly make a drink. He looks familiar, and as she is consumed by shame from her behavior the previous week— hooking up with her parents' colleague and her roommate's brother— she also becomes convinced that her Brooklyn bartender is actually Sigmund Freud. They embark on a relationship, and she is forced to confront her past through the prism of their complex, revealing, and sometimes shocking meetings.
With the help of Freud—or whoever he is—she begins to untangle her Oedipal leanings, her upbringing, and her desires. Jessica Gross's debut is unflinchingly perceptive and honest, darkly funny, and unafraid of mining the deepest fears of contemporary lives.
With the help of Freud—or whoever he is—she begins to untangle her Oedipal leanings, her upbringing, and her desires. Jessica Gross's debut is unflinchingly perceptive and honest, darkly funny, and unafraid of mining the deepest fears of contemporary lives.
184 pages, Paperback
First published August 18, 2020
130 people are currently reading
17141 people want to read
About the author
Jessica Gross
11 books57 followersJessica Gross's writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The Paris Review Daily, among other places. She holds an MFA in fiction from The New School, a Master's degree in cultural reporting and criticism from New York University and a Bachelor's in anthropology from Princeton University. She has received fellowships in fiction from the Yiddish Book Center (2017) and the 14th Street Y (2015-16), where she also served as editor of the LABA Journal. She currently teaches writing at Eugene Lang College at The New School. Hysteria is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 653 reviews
September 24, 2025
You ever finish a book, close it, and think: “Wait… did I just hallucinate those three hours of my life? Because I remember NOTHING.” Yeah, that’s me right now with this disaster. And maybe it’s not my memory failing—it’s because absolutely nothing happened.
I wanted to DNF this at least 1,234 times, but like the masochist I am, I pushed through. Why? Self-hatred? Boredom? Curiosity about how bad it could get? Honestly, all of the above. Spoiler: it got worse.
The writing? Dry, pretentious, and irritating. The main character? A walking red flag with “wild sexual thoughts” I could’ve happily lived without reading. The plot? What plot? The theme? Don’t ask me—I was too busy wondering why I didn’t just quit. And connection to the characters? Zero. Nada. Zilch. I felt like I was watching mannequins pretend to have inner lives.
Everyone else’s 5-star reviews are out here calling it “brilliant” and “profound.” Me? I call it brain rot. Someone please draw me a map of what I missed, because right now I just feel duped by a pretty cover and the promise of something that never arrived.
To summarize for the brave souls who made it this far into my rant:
My brain is deceased.
I don’t know what the hell I just read.
The plot, theme, concept? Nonexistent.
This was three hours of my life I’ll never get back.
Covers LIE.
This book was terrible—capital T Terrible.
Final verdict: if you’re looking for an exercise in frustration, here’s your masterpiece. Otherwise, save your brain cells.
I wanted to DNF this at least 1,234 times, but like the masochist I am, I pushed through. Why? Self-hatred? Boredom? Curiosity about how bad it could get? Honestly, all of the above. Spoiler: it got worse.
The writing? Dry, pretentious, and irritating. The main character? A walking red flag with “wild sexual thoughts” I could’ve happily lived without reading. The plot? What plot? The theme? Don’t ask me—I was too busy wondering why I didn’t just quit. And connection to the characters? Zero. Nada. Zilch. I felt like I was watching mannequins pretend to have inner lives.
Everyone else’s 5-star reviews are out here calling it “brilliant” and “profound.” Me? I call it brain rot. Someone please draw me a map of what I missed, because right now I just feel duped by a pretty cover and the promise of something that never arrived.
To summarize for the brave souls who made it this far into my rant:
My brain is deceased.
I don’t know what the hell I just read.
The plot, theme, concept? Nonexistent.
This was three hours of my life I’ll never get back.
Covers LIE.
This book was terrible—capital T Terrible.
Final verdict: if you’re looking for an exercise in frustration, here’s your masterpiece. Otherwise, save your brain cells.
May 29, 2020
Hysteria belongs to a Marmite subset of literary fiction that I like to call 'books about disaster women'. (Other disaster women books include, for example: The Pisces, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Almost Love.) These books tend to feature young women in their 20s-30s who have abrasive personalities and make poor decisions and have a lot of casual sex usually for the wrong reasons. If you do not enjoy disaster women books, you will not like Hysteria, it's important to get that out of the way. This will not be the book to change your mind and embrace this whole subgenre if it's something you've henceforth found uninteresting or repulsive.
But with that said, if you do enjoy disaster women books, it's a damn good one. In Hysteria we follow an unnamed narrator living in Brooklyn, who goes into her local bar one day and discovers a new bartender has just started working there; she becomes compelled by him and starts to believe that he is none other than Sigmund Freud.
Hysteria is short, punchy, and shocking. The way Jessica Gross juxtaposes the narrator's meditations on sexual desire and meditations on daughterhood are uncomfortable to the extreme - I'm trying to avoid using the word oedipal in this review as I know that isn't an enticing prospect for most people - but what works is that Gross's writing never tips into gratuitousness. It isn't provocative for the sake of being provocative; she actually does have incisive points to make as she simultaneously celebrates and interrogates the narrator's lasciviousness. Not a book for everyone but highly recommended to those who it appeals to.
Thank you to Unnamed Press for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
But with that said, if you do enjoy disaster women books, it's a damn good one. In Hysteria we follow an unnamed narrator living in Brooklyn, who goes into her local bar one day and discovers a new bartender has just started working there; she becomes compelled by him and starts to believe that he is none other than Sigmund Freud.
Hysteria is short, punchy, and shocking. The way Jessica Gross juxtaposes the narrator's meditations on sexual desire and meditations on daughterhood are uncomfortable to the extreme - I'm trying to avoid using the word oedipal in this review as I know that isn't an enticing prospect for most people - but what works is that Gross's writing never tips into gratuitousness. It isn't provocative for the sake of being provocative; she actually does have incisive points to make as she simultaneously celebrates and interrogates the narrator's lasciviousness. Not a book for everyone but highly recommended to those who it appeals to.
Thank you to Unnamed Press for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
September 28, 2020
"Twenty-five minutes to kill, then. I would walk very slowly. 'To kill.' It was a vicious expression, 'killing time,' as if none of us really wanted to be alive at all. And yet didn't I?" -- page 180
Jessica Gross' debut is a little fever dream of a novella, focusing on a few increasingly uneven days in the life of an unmarried Manhattanite private school teacher in her mid-20's. To my recollection she is never named, but the cover illustration reminds me of actress Allison Williams, who played Marnie on the HBO dramedy series Girls. I thought that was rather appropriate, as the book's protagonist would be right at home with the quirky quartet of young ladies that were the center of the TV show.
Anyway . . . we learn that our protagonist, who unreliably narrates her story, has two main coping mechanisms in her seemingly straight-laced but actually troubled life: copious liquor intake and very carefree (though some might argue it's potentially dangerous, between the personal safety, choice of locales, and/or disease issues involved) sexual activity that is performed either solo or with virtual strangers. Thankfully, Hysteria doesn't simply go for being a retread of or updating Looking For Mr. Goodbar - though it mines some of the same territory - but instead strikes out in its own unique direction. The main character - who is the offspring of two stiff but caring therapists - seems to encounter a young bartender who reminds her of Sigmund Freud, and through a single bizarre interaction with him she begins unlocking some forgotten or repressed memories from childhood. This was one odd and occasionally uncomfortable little tale, but I soon appreciated it more as I got used to the off-kilter style, and I especially liked how it ended on a note of possible redemption.
Jessica Gross' debut is a little fever dream of a novella, focusing on a few increasingly uneven days in the life of an unmarried Manhattanite private school teacher in her mid-20's. To my recollection she is never named, but the cover illustration reminds me of actress Allison Williams, who played Marnie on the HBO dramedy series Girls. I thought that was rather appropriate, as the book's protagonist would be right at home with the quirky quartet of young ladies that were the center of the TV show.
Anyway . . . we learn that our protagonist, who unreliably narrates her story, has two main coping mechanisms in her seemingly straight-laced but actually troubled life: copious liquor intake and very carefree (though some might argue it's potentially dangerous, between the personal safety, choice of locales, and/or disease issues involved) sexual activity that is performed either solo or with virtual strangers. Thankfully, Hysteria doesn't simply go for being a retread of or updating Looking For Mr. Goodbar - though it mines some of the same territory - but instead strikes out in its own unique direction. The main character - who is the offspring of two stiff but caring therapists - seems to encounter a young bartender who reminds her of Sigmund Freud, and through a single bizarre interaction with him she begins unlocking some forgotten or repressed memories from childhood. This was one odd and occasionally uncomfortable little tale, but I soon appreciated it more as I got used to the off-kilter style, and I especially liked how it ended on a note of possible redemption.
March 27, 2023
what layer of psychoanalysis is having sex with freud
August 19, 2022
This was one of the weirdest but most captivating things I ever read. It’s a shot work of fiction which is definitely not for everyone. In my opinion, Jessica Gross style of writing is what makes this book enjoyable to read. The story itself is not most comfortable read, it is a mix of mystery, misery, various sexual experiences, unpleasant social interactions and main characters self-deprecating inner monologue.
dnfed
October 16, 2024DNF at 31%, nothing is happening, and the character's inner life is not interesting enough to make it engaging. The prose isn't pretty enough to make me stick with it either, moving on.
No rating.
No rating.
July 10, 2023
uhm..... what was that
April 23, 2023
so i played a drinking game with this book (cause why not?) — take a shot every time freud is mentioned. and bitch let me tell you i’m DRUNK. wasted. i mean i gave up after shot 6. cause like holy fuck freud is mentioned at LEAST 114 times (according to search).
keep in mind that i’m very drunk right now. i enjoy the sexual liberation; the desire to fuck without bounds and be free from society’s judgement. i’m all for it. but this chick be fucking with the WRONG guys. evil ass disgusting men. it was a trip of a novel, do not play the drinking game i played. i’m very wasted. “freud would love me.” facts.
keep in mind that i’m very drunk right now. i enjoy the sexual liberation; the desire to fuck without bounds and be free from society’s judgement. i’m all for it. but this chick be fucking with the WRONG guys. evil ass disgusting men. it was a trip of a novel, do not play the drinking game i played. i’m very wasted. “freud would love me.” facts.
December 1, 2023
The person who compared it to Fleabag and I May Destroy You on the back of the book deserves JAIL
September 10, 2025
read her newer book, Open Wide, instead
February 8, 2022
Exploring daddy issues through sex, masturbation and talking to a bartender who is almost certainly Sigmund Freud:)))
May 13, 2022
I'll be kind and save you from the boredom of approximately 180 pages: our protagonist wasn't hugged enough as a child.
The blurbed synopsis of Hysteria promises a thrilling psychological examination of an unhinged woman. I cannot stress this enough: I love unhinged women. This subgenre scratches such a particular brain itch for me. Even if I don't particularly like the book, I'm usually happy reading about unlikable, flawed women doing unsavory or even downright evil things. Hysteria promised me an unhinged woman on a sex fueled bender. What did I get instead? B.O.R.E.D.O.M.
Our unnamed protagonist is the least compelling, most average character I've ever encountered. What's more, the reader doesn't even get to experience any of the characters as people. Jessica Gross's narrative style keeps the reader at an arm's length from the characters- and maybe that's intentional since the whole Point of the book is how loneliness and in childhood translates into touch-starvation in adulthood- but it doesn't make for a good book. How am I supposed to relate to the characters and feel for them if I don't get to experience any intimacy with them? If I'm not shown reasons to care? What's even more frustrating to me is that this book isn't even hysterical! Nothing actually happens! And when things do happen, they're told in a static, detached way. For a book titled Hysteria it sure does lack emotion.
This is one novel that should've stayed as a MFA short story.
The blurbed synopsis of Hysteria promises a thrilling psychological examination of an unhinged woman. I cannot stress this enough: I love unhinged women. This subgenre scratches such a particular brain itch for me. Even if I don't particularly like the book, I'm usually happy reading about unlikable, flawed women doing unsavory or even downright evil things. Hysteria promised me an unhinged woman on a sex fueled bender. What did I get instead? B.O.R.E.D.O.M.
Our unnamed protagonist is the least compelling, most average character I've ever encountered. What's more, the reader doesn't even get to experience any of the characters as people. Jessica Gross's narrative style keeps the reader at an arm's length from the characters- and maybe that's intentional since the whole Point of the book is how loneliness and in childhood translates into touch-starvation in adulthood- but it doesn't make for a good book. How am I supposed to relate to the characters and feel for them if I don't get to experience any intimacy with them? If I'm not shown reasons to care? What's even more frustrating to me is that this book isn't even hysterical! Nothing actually happens! And when things do happen, they're told in a static, detached way. For a book titled Hysteria it sure does lack emotion.
This is one novel that should've stayed as a MFA short story.
November 6, 2020
This was one of the weirdest and most specific things I'ver read in along time, and my immediate reaction on finishing was: what the hell did i just read? It doesn't even really feel right to rate it as it doesn't feel rateable, but I settled on 2 stars because whilst I could see some merit in the writing; I didn't enjoy the read, haven't thought about it since, and found most of it unrelenting. Most of the novel (novella?) flip flops between misery, questionable sexual experiences, masturbation, and awkward social interactions.
It attempts to present a woman who has found herself in deep psychological distress and full of repressed desires; despite the fact that her only outlet seems to be performing sexual acts. I understood what the novel was trying to do I just don't think it handled it in the best manner, or at least it wasn't quite to my liking. It did manage to broach some interesting ground about mental health, sex, relationships, modern dating culture, sexism, Capitalism, and obviously the elephant in the room; the Oedipus complex. The choice to have a barman appear to her as Freud was certainly a very Freudian choice.
It attempts to present a woman who has found herself in deep psychological distress and full of repressed desires; despite the fact that her only outlet seems to be performing sexual acts. I understood what the novel was trying to do I just don't think it handled it in the best manner, or at least it wasn't quite to my liking. It did manage to broach some interesting ground about mental health, sex, relationships, modern dating culture, sexism, Capitalism, and obviously the elephant in the room; the Oedipus complex. The choice to have a barman appear to her as Freud was certainly a very Freudian choice.
August 9, 2025
4.0 ⭐️
Hysteria is the debut novel from author Jessica Gross. The writing style is reminiscent of Elle Nash���s Animals Eat Each Other and Mona Awad’s 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.
The content is overtly sexual and unabashedly Oedipal as Gross follows a graduate student’s downward spiral over a two-day period. Intent upon self-destruction, her life’s essentially a dumpster fire of her own making. She consistently makes the worst choices and you can’t help watching the train wreck of her existence with morbid fascination.
Hysteria is the debut novel from author Jessica Gross. The writing style is reminiscent of Elle Nash���s Animals Eat Each Other and Mona Awad’s 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.
The content is overtly sexual and unabashedly Oedipal as Gross follows a graduate student’s downward spiral over a two-day period. Intent upon self-destruction, her life’s essentially a dumpster fire of her own making. She consistently makes the worst choices and you can’t help watching the train wreck of her existence with morbid fascination.
July 2, 2023
I have came back and forth to this book for a week. I just can’t get into it and.. i can’t remember anything about it when I would start it again. It was almost like I needed to start over so I gave up. I was hopeful because of the title and cover. It has that vibe I love.. but only the title and cover though has the vibe turns out. Disappointed. 😒
January 31, 2020
I've had the immense privilege of reading a galley of this novel and I can't WAIT for the world to read it!
Jessica Gross's debut about a troubled young woman who becomes convinced over the course of one frenzied night that her Brooklyn bartender is Sigmund Freud will leave you shocked, intrigued, curious, breathless and entertained. It's a strange, wonderful story about familial bonds, trauma, psychology, upper crust New Yorkers and claiming your identity. I mean...it's great. Get ready.
Jessica Gross's debut about a troubled young woman who becomes convinced over the course of one frenzied night that her Brooklyn bartender is Sigmund Freud will leave you shocked, intrigued, curious, breathless and entertained. It's a strange, wonderful story about familial bonds, trauma, psychology, upper crust New Yorkers and claiming your identity. I mean...it's great. Get ready.
December 30, 2022
this book got me figgity figgity fucked UP. 10/10 don’t recommend reading if you are a twenty-something living in nyc going through a particularly dark time. might hit too close to home. or, maybe 10/10 DO recommend in that exact scenario. who am I to say, I’m sure as hell not Freud
September 10, 2021
3.5 deeply sexual and deeply disturbing
January 19, 2024
3.5 stars
May 14, 2022
Hysteria is another instalment in a collection of books which fall under the category of what I like to call “unhinged female protagonist”.
This is definitely not a book for everyone, however I found Gross’ writing to be captivating and the character study of the lead was unflinchingly honest and perceptive.
Definitely recommend for fans of Otessa Moshfegh!
This is definitely not a book for everyone, however I found Gross’ writing to be captivating and the character study of the lead was unflinchingly honest and perceptive.
Definitely recommend for fans of Otessa Moshfegh!
December 14, 2020
A wild ride into the mind of an out of control narrator. Psychoanalysis on steroids! Exciting at the beginning, but I just got bored with the constant breakneck pace and just wanted it to end.
July 30, 2024
loved how close it came to fleabag & how real it felt at certain parts, but disliked the discussion of freud and oedipus for obvious reasons !
July 8, 2023
This felt like a fever dream
January 4, 2023
i wish i never read this. so much of my time was wasted reading about a female manipulator begging sigmund freud to fuck her and when she wasnt begging she was masturbating.
new edit:
i’ve thinking about this book again and its made me absolutely mad that a publisher read this book and was like “YES! let’s publish it!” the book was downright gross and had the worst plot like you could ever fathom creating. i hate jessica gross
new edit:
i’ve thinking about this book again and its made me absolutely mad that a publisher read this book and was like “YES! let’s publish it!” the book was downright gross and had the worst plot like you could ever fathom creating. i hate jessica gross
January 26, 2020
This short novel is a wild, fun ride that puts the psychology in psychological thriller. Raunchy, surreal, funny and with one of the best unreliable narrators since Sarah Levine's TREASURE ISLAND!!!
Read
September 21, 2022I’m not rating this book because I read it for a research paper but my god was it good. So unhinged but so honest. I’m also still buzzing at how well this book works for my paper
October 5, 2021
deeply disturbing book about an unhinged, self destructive, alcoholic woman with mommy and daddy issues. my kind of book. the reoccurring sexual fantasies the main character has about sigmund freud is both hilarious and concerning.
Read
September 24, 2022an obsession with freud & daddy issues, good morning to me ig
March 12, 2023
genuinely would have rather read the bible than this book
June 29, 2024
What the hell did I just read
Displaying 1 - 30 of 653 reviews