Agnes Lives!

by Hallie Elizabeth Newton

Bloomsbury presents Agnes Lives written and read by Hallie Elizabeth Newton

"An astonishing debut as mesmerizing as it is unnerving." --Joyce Carol Oates

A day-in-the-life debut novel about a fading socialite on the hunt for someone to kill her before her next SoulCycle class.

"A tale of suspense, a statement, a cry for help, and a delicious tour-de-force.” --Nell Zink

New York City, 2014. Agnes Maurer seeks a willing murderer and wonders what she should wear. Candidates an icy magazine editor with a special cutlery set; an eccentric designer from her past; and Agnes’s cruel novelist boyfriend. As she Ubers from Upper East Side shopping to Craigslist gun deals, Agnes’ desperation becomes an exhibition, a swan song of millennial sexuality as internalized abuse and consummate style, with the knob righty-tightened all the way.

Newton's prose is disturbingly fun, relentless, shattering. A crafted study of existential despair that culminates in a worthy, intense denouement.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Literature, Adult Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club

Audible Audio

First published June 23, 2026

Reviews

[Sophia Eck · Rating 2 out of 5]

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!

[Annaliese · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is deranged, but not in the “weird girl lit” way that’s been popular, but in a “difficult to want to read” way. The text is made up of Agnes’ racing, mostly crass stream-of-consciousness thoughts, but she is such a grating character. I know she’s crazy, but it isn’t done well. Agnes is supposed to be a madwoman, but is simply not interesting enough to be the central character of a book. This book could have been 100 pages shorter; it would still be all over the place, but at least its reader would get it over with faster. I am genuinely disappointed that such a terrible book could be published.

Overall an unpleasant reading experience, to put it mildly. If you want to read a book about a woman who buys an interesting dress and is intently seeking out the perfect person to kill her, just read Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat. It’s leagues beyond Agnes Lives!

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Bloomsbury.

[jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

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).

[Melissa Remark · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - I was intrigued by the premise - a socialite/former model (?) struggles with her deteriorating mental health over the course of 24 hours in New York City and searches for someone to kill her, seemingly because she doesn't have the strength to do it herself - but I stayed for the immersive stream of consciousness. While I found the writing style hard to stick with (and honestly, I lost the plot several times, which I believe is the point), we don't often get to read stream of consciousness these days. Agnes Lives! provides that rare opportunity, and placing this style of writing in the mind of a tragically dissociative and distracted, status-obsessed woman is both smart and maddening. This is not a fun book to read, and in the end, I still have many questions. Agnes Lives! is challenging. It asks the reader to empathize and understand what happens to a mind consumed with validation, whether in person or online, and it's an ugly place to be. It's a worthwhile read. I think I would have loved it if it were novella length, even though it's a short book as is.

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for the ARC.

[Melody · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’d like to congratulate myself for my stubborn perseverance in finishing this ….book.

Reading Agnes Lives felt like discovering a forgotten manuscript I might have written in my early twenties when I had a rotating pharmacy of substances in and out of my system, severe depression, and suffered from sleep deprivation.

Characters appear, vanish, monologue, and emotionally unravel with the confidence of people who have never once met a coherent thought. The one thing that did peak my interest was the accidental murder spree 🤷🏻‍♀️

Was that a profound look into the deteriorating mind of a self absorbed insecure woman, performance art, or evidence submitted during a custody hearing? Thanks to the vague ending I guess we’ll never know.

[Peyton Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

listened to as an audiobook! this was the most absurd consistent stream of completely unhinged thoughts. I’m all for weird girl lit with an insufferable fmc but this felt like it was done with no purpose??? the plot was non existent until the very end. it was just Agnes thinking things that were so so so so so odd and sexual and I really did not love that. it just felt like a spewing of thoughts in no direction and again I’m all for a weird narrative structure but this was just not done well. plus the casual brushing past multiple rape and sexual assault references and then a rape scene being depicted on page just really icked me out. I just wish a little more care had been taken with those choices.

this had such an in interesting premise and there were VERY brief moments that had me hooked at the idea of this unhinged woman looking for someone to murder her and her thought process behind how she would achieve that, but those were such fleeting moments that were never followed through on.

[em · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never wanted a first person POV to end more than I have when reading this. Agnes was incredibly frustrating to read about, and not in an unlikeable narrator way, but in a dim witted and self absorbed way. She was stupid, naive, self obsessed and utterly clueless. Her unreliable narrative felt like I was stuck reading her journal, it was messy and overwhelming. A great concept, but a very annoying character.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #AgnesLives #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

agnes lives and subjects us to an incoherent 250 page POV

[Smam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is this the "weird girl lit" I keep hearing about? Because I think it might just not be for me. This is 100% a love it or hate it kind of book. It's very readable and has a strong narrative voice that both pulls in and repels readers. Agnes as a narrator is so self-centered that we don't even hear anyone else's dialogue, only her own. She's also clearly mentally ill and has been abused throughout her life by the people around her. She'll be narrating some nonsense and then go on a brief tangent about the guy that raped her and then onto the next topic in a way that built a strong portrait of her as a person. But wow, the NYC-ness of it all was pretty insufferable to me. I also kept thinking "this doesn't feel like 2014," but 2014 in NYC was probably very different from 2014 where I was living at the time. Ends very abruptly but I actually kind of loved that. But the excess of the narrative and the stream-of-conscious style were just too grating for me.

[Mallorywhobooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an absolutely chaotic ride. Agnes Lives throws you headfirst into her stream of consciousness and just doesn’t let up. I listened on audiobook and honestly can’t imagine experiencing this any other way, the narrator’s voice made the manic energy hit so much harder. There’s something about hearing the spiral out loud that made it feel intimate and unsettling at the same time.

Agnes herself is a mess in the best way. She’s vain, she’s insufferable, she says and does things that made me want to shake her and yet the book never lets you forget why. The things she’s lived through, the undiagnosed issues clearly simmering under the surface, all of it makes her descent into madness feel like an inevitability. I understood her even when I couldn’t stand her, which is exactly the kind of messy, complicated character work I live for.

It’s chaotic, it’s intense, it lives entirely in one very unwell head without any outside POV or input. What an experience 😅

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh Agnes… why were you never diagnosed with some sort of mental illness?!

I think it’s best to go into this book blind. The best way I can describe this is that this story is heartbreaking yet manic but in a satirically pretentious way. The entire story takes place over the course of 1 day – chapters broken down by times – as we follow Agnes on her decent into pure madness.

For lovers of weird girl lit, this is the crème of the crop. Do yourself a favor and check this one out. Bravo to Hallie on her debut novel, excited to see what she writes next.

Thank you to Bloomsbury USA & NetGalley for this advanced reader copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and my review is left voluntarily.

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guys the reviews are low on this one but I liked it...specifically in audiobook format.
Overall, I think Newton did such an excellent job with the mind of an unreliable and manic narrator! Agnes is like comically annoying white woman nepo baby archetype, which I find to be annoying and overdone usually but I was pretty entertained by her stupidity, and couldn't look away. Like watching a car crash in slo-mo.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok i see why people don’t vibe with this because it is one long stream of consciousness day with a psychopath but idk i found it kinda fun

[A.D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fine.

[Kaysey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between 3.5 & 4 stars

[Sadie Zabawa]

Here's what I'll say: the author really should have let someone else read the audiobook

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and affecting

[Matilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I support women’s rights but mostly women’s wrongs

[Ashlyn Tickle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you Bloomsbury for the gifted ARC. This doesn’t affect my honest review.

This was…😳 … I struggled with this one. It reads like Agnes has ADHD and while I can appreciate the uniqueness of using a stream of consciousness type of writing… I just couldn’t stay engaged because I was getting so so lost every cope second.

On another note, this book was entirely unhinged and I kind of loved that because holy crap what is happening. It just goes to show how debilitating it can be to mental health to care so much about social media, societal trends, and only ones image.

Agnes is so off the rails she’s literally walking up to people asking them to unalive her and has even considered her dad. I think my general sentiment with this one is shock and a little bit appalled.

Like I said, it’s not for me but I can appreciate the uniqueness of this one…

[Lieselle Furtado · Rating 2 out of 5]

Might’ve been fun if framed differently. Even though it was so short it could’ve been shorter to be honest!

[kennedy parrish · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 ⭐️ Not all weird girl lit is created equal. In AGNES LIVES! we are following a model in NYC in the mid 2010s as she experiences a serious crash out, but filtered through her deeply unserious mind. I actually really liked this stylistically, and I liked how quick and easy this was to read, but the point of it all felt a little lost to me.

[Jamie Rosenblit · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 65% - even the SoulCycle references couldn’t save this one for me.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPOILERS!!
I absolutely loved this book! What I suspected would be a weird, dark comedy quickly turned into a fever pitched murder thriller, where you are completely engrossed in the mind of a woman in what must be the throws of a manic depressive bipolar episode. You see the world entirely from her view and very quickly pick up on the things that don't add up - the inconsistency of addresses, the random urination and not changing her clothing but rather walking into Barneys, the deteriorating condition of an apartment she claims belongs to a successful director...and little by little, you realize she is a completely unreliable narrator to the point where you begin to question what if ANY of her background and of the day's events even really happened. Does she really have wealthy parents? WAs she ever really successful? Were some of those people she bumped into ever really friends? I thought it was brilliant, the way increasingly alarm was shown for Agnes as evidenced by Agnes' responses and also really liked how people who were initially presented as antagonists (esp the boyfriend) end up being very relatable. For ex: he begins as being painted as someone cruel. Perhaps he is. But he is also someone in a relationship with a woman who openly attempts to kill herself should he leave her, who is obsessively dependent on him, and who seems to be manic. Also, the inclusion of subtle commentary on white women's ability to evade accountability for crimes committed and easily pinpoint crimes on Black men, even when they are quite literally covered in the bloody evidence themselves, all the white purporting to be supporters of Black Lives Matter, all the while speaking to Black police officers and Black employees as if they are no more animate than the inanimate objects Agnes also talks to...I thought it was brilliant. Job well done!

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Deages Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely devoured Agnes Lives!
This is one of those rare books that completely drops you into a character’s mind and refuses to let you leave. Agnes is messy, funny, heartbreaking, self-destructive, privileged, lonely, and painfully human all at once. The premise alone is wild—a New York socialite spending twenty-four hours trying to find someone to kill her before her next SoulCycle class—but what makes the book so compelling is that beneath all the absurdity is a sharp and surprisingly moving exploration of loneliness, identity, image, and the desperate need to be seen.
The writing is electric. Reading Agnes’s stream of consciousness felt like being trapped inside a brilliant, unraveling mind. I found myself laughing one minute, cringing the next, and then suddenly feeling deeply sad for her. The novel captures a very specific era of New York and social-media culture while also saying something universal about modern life and the ways we try to fill emotional emptiness with achievement, beauty, status, or attention.
This won’t be for everyone—it’s chaotic, intense, and unapologetically strange—but if you love character-driven literary fiction, unreliable narrators, and books that take risks, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Agnes is the kind of character who gets under your skin and stays there long after you’ve finished the last page. I can definitely see this as a tv show someday it definitely has A24 vibes.

This is by far One of the most original and memorable debuts I’ve read in a long time.

[Jamad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Agnes Lives! follows Agnes Maurer over the course of a single chaotic day in New York as she searches for someone willing to kill her before her next spin class. The novel moves through designer boutiques, toxic relationships, social media spirals and various encounters meant to expose the emptiness and excess of a certain kind of millennial Manhattan existence.

A two star review from me usually means a book was okay and had something worthwhile in it somewhere. This, unfortunately, was not even that. Hence the one star.

I genuinely do not understand the flood of four and five star reviews. For me this felt less like a fully formed novel and more like the output of a creative writing exercise where every page had to become more shocking, more frantic and more excessive than the last. There is certainly energy here, and I can see the author is aiming for satire mixed with cultural critique, but I found it exhausting rather than insightful.

The prose constantly strains for effect and the endless parade of sex, despair, wealth and self-destruction quickly became repetitive. After a while it felt as though shock value was doing most of the heavy lifting. I never found Agnes remotely interesting enough to justify spending an entire novel trapped in her orbit.

Clearly I am the wrong audience for this book. Plenty of readers seem to think it is bold, fearless and brilliant. I just found it hollow and irritating.

Let’s hope it doesn’t turn up on any prize lists.

[ReReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Libro.fm for the gifted audiobook!

This is one of the strangest books I’ve read all year, and I genuinely mean that as a compliment.

The entire novel feels like spending a day inside the stream of consciousness of a deeply depressed woman. Her thoughts bounce between luxury brands, beauty treatments, coffee, work, her boyfriend, intrusive thoughts, and the minute details of her day. It’s chaotic, unsettling, darkly funny at times, and completely unlike anything else I’ve read recently.

One of my favorite narrative choices was that we only hear the narrator’s side of every conversation. Even when she’s talking to other people, we’re never given their responses. It constantly made me question what was actually happening versus what we were experiencing through her perspective, and I found myself paying just as much attention to the way the story was being told as I was to the story itself.

I also loved how unpredictable this book became. I genuinely had no idea that the way the day started was anywhere close to where it was headed. Every time I thought I had a handle on what this novel was doing, it would take another sharp left turn.

This definitely won’t be for everyone. It’s intentionally unhinged, deeply psychological, and much more interested in immersing you in one woman’s mind than following a conventional narrative structure. Because of that, I think it’ll be a very divisive read, but I found it fascinating from beginning to end.

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Anthony G. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rage bait for BookTok. I read it, all of the pages, because Joyce Carol Oates called it “an astonishing debut.” Picture the prolific 88-year-old Oates, a professor, masterful storyteller, reading the line, “Buzz buzz buzz on the phone, omigod. Craigslist. That was so fast.” Thinking, "Let's put my blurb on the cover."

This book badly wants to be another book (at least until it becomes American Psycho). You know the one: New York, detached sad girl, single day, years ago. But where that book made you feel something, this book is some words on some small pages, experimental only in the sense that all the dialogue is one-sided and italicized. Like listening to an annoying phone conversation in a hot subway car.

Look, I love characters you're supposed to hate: flawed, vain, selfish, whatever. I don't hate Agnes; she is profoundly boring. She tries so hard to shock you, but more than anything, she needs 11 or more likes on an Instagram post. This book is that post, not to be confused with a commentary on existential despair, not an insightful one, anyway. It's Nausea for very online people with a high tolerance for incoherent narrative.

“Bite, bit. Hit. Clit. Clitoris. Sisyphus. Sissus pus. Sissy sit. Sisters. Scissors. Scissor fit. Clitty tit.” Shout-out to these 16 published words for surviving multiple (?) drafts.