Marcella Cox narrates this striking debut with hushed intensity. Mickey is a Black beauty writer whose sudden layoff sends her spiraling into despair. Demoralized and exhausted by the racism she has experienced in the cutthroat world of fashion writing in New York and struggling to hold on to her self-worth, she abruptly leaves her girlfriend and heads home to suburban Maryland, where she reconnects with an old flame. Cox does a great job capturing Mickey's conflicting emotions. She smoothly incorporates dozens of text messages into her performance and delivers zingy one-liners and emotional monologues with equal skill. This is a sharp, funny, brutally honest novel about being young, going home, and figuring out what really matters. L.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
""[A] sharp, charming and passionate debut."" -New York Times Book Review
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle, USA Today, Bustle, Ebony, Harper's Bazaar, PopSugar, New York Post,*The Skimm, and The Millions.
A Best Book of 2023 by Marie Claire, Esquire, Vogue, them, Autostraddle, Betches, Gay Times, and Cosmopolitan.
An insightful, propulsive, and deeply sexy debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and pens a searing manifesto about racism in the industry.
Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter, but, for now, her days are filled with listicles about lip gloss and click-bait articles about celebrity haircare. Still, the job is flashy and her girlfriend is steady and supportive.*The path may be long, but Mickey's well on her way, and it's far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Everything finally seems to be falling into place-until she finds out she's being replaced.
Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism she's endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, even from her usually-encouraging girlfriend, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is, she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run: her hometown.
Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her hometown-and the flirtation of a former flame-but she soon learns that you can't outrun your past. In the newfound quiet, she is forced to reflect on the sacrifices she'd made for an industry that never loved her back and pick up the pieces of the life she thought she'd left behind for good. After all, when the walls of success you've carefully built around yourself come crumbling down, what-and who-are you left with?
A meditation on identity, self-worth and the toll of corporate racism, Homebodies is a portrait of modern Black womanhood with a protagonist you won't soon forget.
""[A] sharp, charming and passionate debut."" -New York Times Book Review
A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle, USA Today, Bustle, Ebony, Harper's Bazaar, PopSugar, New York Post,*The Skimm, and The Millions.
A Best Book of 2023 by Marie Claire, Esquire, Vogue, them, Autostraddle, Betches, Gay Times, and Cosmopolitan.
An insightful, propulsive, and deeply sexy debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and pens a searing manifesto about racism in the industry.
Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter, but, for now, her days are filled with listicles about lip gloss and click-bait articles about celebrity haircare. Still, the job is flashy and her girlfriend is steady and supportive.*The path may be long, but Mickey's well on her way, and it's far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Everything finally seems to be falling into place-until she finds out she's being replaced.
Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism she's endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, even from her usually-encouraging girlfriend, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is, she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run: her hometown.
Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her hometown-and the flirtation of a former flame-but she soon learns that you can't outrun your past. In the newfound quiet, she is forced to reflect on the sacrifices she'd made for an industry that never loved her back and pick up the pieces of the life she thought she'd left behind for good. After all, when the walls of success you've carefully built around yourself come crumbling down, what-and who-are you left with?
A meditation on identity, self-worth and the toll of corporate racism, Homebodies is a portrait of modern Black womanhood with a protagonist you won't soon forget.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940175963466 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins |
Publication date: | 05/02/2023 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Sales rank: | 1,098,895 |
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