Good Girl

PRAISE FOR GOOD GIRL



“I’m calling it, Anna Fitzpatrick’s novel Good Girl is going to be a cult-favorite if not on many people’s must-read lists. . . . Fitzpatrick takes romance tropes and flips them on their head — then slaps them.”

—BuzzFeed



“Good Girl is very funny, original and fully absorbing. A brilliant and surprising debut novel that is smart, unaffected and full of the joys and uncertainties of being human.”

—Iain Reid, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Foe, and We Spread



“Good Girl lures you in with its excellent sex scenes, but it seals the deal with its authentic portrait of what it feels like to be a young woman in the world. Sex, friendship, family, work—who knows what to make of any of it? Anna Fitzpatrick's debut is both funny and titillating, and, like so few early sexual encounters, totally satisfying.”

—Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here and Modern Lovers



“Yes, Good Girl is a book about sex . . . But it’s also, more broadly, about the difficult work of self-validation, and about a young woman teaching herself how to be, rather than waiting to be told what to do. . . . And for all its razor-sharp edges, Good Girl is also a uniquely gentle portrait of a complex, complicated young woman just trying to get things right. Plus, it’s incredibly, intensely, laugh-out-loud funny.”

—Rebecca Tucker, The Globe and Mail



“Lucy, the protagonist of Good Girl, might know what it means to do a good job, be a good friend, or be good in bed, but this is the story of her stumbling towards how. How do we take care of what matters to us, and why do we value the things we do? Funny until it hurts, Good Girl brilliantly captures the vivid details and fuzzy feelings happening in the mind of a person on the verge of becoming herself. This is a great novel about a character desperate to be good.”

—Haley Mlotek



"On feminism, loneliness, and the question of kink, Anna Fitzpatrick bluntly probes the contradictions of sex-positive culture, baring the many ways that shame feeds arousal. Good Girl is a sensitive girl's hardcore."

—Tamara Faith Berger, author of Queen Solomon



“Good Girl is an intense ride, with more twists and turns than a pile of rope at the end of an orgy. Plan to be unable to put it down.”

—Stoya, performer and author, Philosophy, Pussycats, and Porn



"Good Girl pokes fun at the contradictions of life as a contemporary twenty-something, only to sincerely engage with the timeless questions that come with growing up: What do I want? Are they the right things? And what if the right things aren’t enough? This is a clever and truly funny exploration of desire, shame, power and becoming. The sex scenes are good, too, which never hurts.”

—Madi Haslam, Maisonneuve



“Anna Fitzpatrick has accomplished an incredible balancing act. Good Girl manages to depict sex and sexuality that is both painful in the way Lucy wants it to be and painful in the awkward and hilarious reality of what it means to navigate relationships and life. In addition to the sex (and there’s a lot of sex), it’s also a story about friendship, the malaise of young adulthood, and, of course, 1970s magazines. Buy this book (unless you are Anna’s parents, and then, maybe skip it).”

—David Iserson, screenwriter, The Spy Who Dumped Me