My First Book

Praise

“We count on our best young fiction writers to bring us news from the digital nervous system. Honor Levy, in My First Book, a collection of stories that is indeed her first book, does so with special bite and élan. . . . Reading Levy is what it must have felt like to read Ann Beattie on her generation in the early 1970s . . . In this collection’s finest work, Levy’s sentences are cold poetry of a sort. . . . What pushes Levy’s stories beyond being merely on the level of smart magazine essays is the empathy you can sense below the starkness . . . Is a hot take a stab at being found? Levy can dispense these as well as anyone. Crucially, though, she understands that ‘a hot take won’t keep you warm at night.’” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“A premier voice of a new generation of writers . . . Levy’s vulnerability and insightful reflections on growing up online are what made this for me and shine through.” —Electric Lit

“Captures the Gen Z experience . . . like reading a foreign language that I didn’t know I grew up speaking.” —Michigan Daily

“Experimental and creative . . . A fascinating take on Gen Z life, lived online.” —Booklist

“Crackling debut collection . . . Levy shines when capturing her characters’ existential dread . . . Levy announces herself as an astute interpreter of Zoomer culture.” —Publishers Weekly

“This book defies definition . . . Oddly exquisite.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“My First Book manages to somehow be based, redpilled, woke, cringe, and, above all else, brilliant all at the same time. (And if you’re not a zoomer, it’ll define some of that terminally online vocabulary for you.) Finally, my generation has a voice to be proud of.” —Brock Colyar, winner of the American Society of Magazine Editors Next Award
 
“Fractal stories from the eschatological present, told in a strange, new, manic, and flarfy voice that I trust and endorse.” —Tao Lin, author of Leave Society
 
“Nobody writes like Honor Levy. My First Book is brutal and feminine, dreamlike and fantastic. I relished every word.” —Cat Marnell, author of How To Murder Your Life