Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m a sucker for unlikeable. A charged word thatā€™s sometimes used about protagonists but mostly only about female protagonists. When they donā€™t fit a template. When they are imperfect. When they push back. When they are too emotional or too distant or too interior or too driven or too obsessed or too mean or too nice or too smart or not smart enough. The protagonists in these novels are flawedā€”period. But flawed is complex and perfect is simple and simple is boring and no one wants to read a boring novel.


I wrote

The Tip Line

By Vanessa Cuti,

Book cover of The Tip Line

What is my book about?

Eager to get married, Virginia Carey lands a job as an operator at a police tip line, where she thinksā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Eileen

Vanessa Cuti Why did I love this book?

Moshfeghā€™s narrator declares in the bookā€™s very first paragraph: ā€œI hated almost everything,ā€ and states soon after that she is ā€œugly, disgusting, unfit for this world.ā€

Completely preoccupied with her bodyā€”the way it looks as well as its functions, which are depicted in great detailā€”she is trapped in her small existence with no thought of escape until the introduction of a mysterious stranger and the unfurling of a crime.

But the crime plot becomes background to the finely wrought character study: a self-absorbed and obsessive woman on the brink of self-discovery and independence.

By Ottessa Moshfegh,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Eileen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and chosen by David Sedaris as his recommended book for his Fall 2016 tour.

So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes-a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so toā€¦


Book cover of The New Me

Vanessa Cuti Why did I love this book?

ā€œI wonder how I would have to behave, how many changes I would have to make, to tip myself over the edge into this endless abyss of perm.ā€

Millie is a temp and she wants to find a permanent job. Or so she says. Her real goal? ā€œIt should be easier to feel good.ā€ Millie is snarky, sometimes bordering on cruel, recounts minutiae, revels in loneliness, and savors her own dark side. She knows she wants to be a better version of herself but only needs to find her way.

The New Me masterfully paints the frustration brought on by the inevitable passage of time and being unable to see a tangible change in oneself. 

By Halle Butler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The New Me as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Terrific. So funny' Zadie Smith

'Monstrously depressing but so comic and well observed that I didn't really mind .... It is great' Dolly Alderton

'A dark comedy of female rage' Catherine Lacey

'Brilliant. For fans of Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation' Pandora Sykes

'Funny, shocking, clever, and hugely entertaining' Roddy Doyle

'A definitive work of milennial literature' Jia Tolentino

'The best thing I've read in years' Emma Jane Unsworth

'Vicious ... hilariously spot on' Guardian



In a windowless office, a woman explains something from her real, nonwork life - about the frustration and indignity of returning herā€¦


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Book cover of No, You're Crazy

No, You're Crazy by Jeff Beamish,

When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton's home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she's clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.ā€¦

Book cover of Love Me Back

Vanessa Cuti Why did I love this book?

Marieā€”a young mother with a young childā€”is trying to make her way in the brutal restaurant industry toward a more settled life but is constantly battling her own self-destructive tendencies.

ā€œI ask my memory, why did I take each next step?ā€ she says near the beginning of the book, but readers feel that each next, disastrous step seems almost pre-ordained. Love Me Back is an unflinching and hyper-interior deep dive into why people are sometimes their own worst enemy.

By Merritt Tierce,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Love Me Back as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Sharp and dangerous and breathtaking.... A defiant story about a young woman choosing the life and motherhood that is best for her, without apology.ā€ ā€”Roxane Gay, bestselling author of Bad Feminist

Marie is a waitress at an upscale Dallas steakhouse, attuned to the appetites of her patrons and gifted at hiding her private struggle as a young single mother behind an easy smile and a crisp white apron. Itā€™s a world of long hours and late nights, and Marie often gives in to self-destructive impulses, losing herself in a tangle of bodies and urgent highs as her desire for obliterationā€¦


Book cover of I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness

Vanessa Cuti Why did I love this book?

ā€œThe story starts atā€¦the point perhaps at which I became aware of my inability to feel any feelings beyond those set to music by the Walt Disney Company,ā€ Claire, the narrator of I Love You but Iā€™ve Chosen Darkness admits on the novelā€™s very first page.

And so weā€™re primed when she does what is probably considered by many to be the most monstrous thing a woman can do: she leaves her child. Interspersed with sections about family history and old letters that shed light on complicated dynamics, the book moves us through Claireā€™s journey as she pushes back against the expectations of marriage and motherhood in search of her own, individualized definition.

By Claire Vaye Watkins,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A 2022 LA Times Book Prize Finalist

A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse-one woman's furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood.

Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling caseā€¦


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Book cover of Sor Juana, My Beloved

Sor Juana, My Beloved by MaryAnn Shank,

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, this brilliant 17th century nun flew through Mexico City on the breeze of poetry and philosophy. She met with princes of the Church, and with the royalty of Spain and Mexico. Then she met a stunning, powerful woman with lavender eyes, la Vicereine Mariaā€¦

Book cover of Animal

Vanessa Cuti Why did I love this book?

Joan abandons her life and moves across the country on a quest to find a stranger from her past, convinced it will help her find peace.

In a savagely honest style, Animal recounts Joanā€™s affairs, family history, a traumatic incident from her youth, and a gaping emptiness within herself that sheā€™s desperate to understand. ā€œIf someone asked me to describe myself in a single word, depraved is the one I would use.ā€

Depraved, sure. Maybe. But itā€™s impossible to be angry at her because sheā€™s so candid about what sheā€™s doing and why. The prose itself is fresh and stark and haunting.

By Lisa Taddeo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Animal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From Lisa Taddeo, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and global phenomenon Three Women, comes an ā€œintoxicatingā€ (Entertainment Weekly), ā€œfearlessā€ (Los Angeles Times), and ā€œexplosiveā€ (People) novel about ā€œwhat happens when women are pushed beyond the brink, and what comes after the reckoningā€ (Esquire).

Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruelties of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her past. In the sweltering hills above Los Angeles,ā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

The Tip Line

By Vanessa Cuti,

Book cover of The Tip Line

What is my book about?

Eager to get married, Virginia Carey lands a job as an operator at a police tip line, where she thinks finding a husband will be easy. But just as her plans begin to fall into place, she answers a call from a mysterious woman who provides a tip about four bodies on a remote local beach. The caller also gives details on sordid parties attended by law enforcement officers, and on the strange fetishes of cops she has been involved with. Then comes an explosive tip: itā€™s a police officer who is responsible for the killings.

Virginia realizes that the key to solving the case is ultimately in her hands and that the tip line will reveal the truthā€”as long as she is willing to hear it.

Book cover of Eileen
Book cover of The New Me
Book cover of Love Me Back

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