cover image Clickbait

Clickbait

Holly Baxter. Harper Perennial, $18.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-337576-5

A disgraced New York City journalist attempts to rebuild her life in Baxter’s underwhelming debut. Natasha Bailey, 35, is on assignment in London for a profile of an Olympics-bound swimmer. Over the course of several interviews, she develops an attraction to the unnamed swimmer, who’s 15 years younger than her, and seduces him. The ensuing article, in which Natasha objectifies the swimmer’s body and alludes to their tryst, goes viral as readers question her behavior—even Sean Hannity weighs in, calling the piece an assault on masculinity. After Natasha confesses to her husband that she gave the swimmer a blowjob, he divorces her. To make matters worse, she’s demoted at her newspaper and relegated to writing “tragedy porn.” When Natasha finds out that her old boyfriend Zach is looking for a place to stay, she volunteers the second bedroom of her post-divorce condo, hoping for a rekindled romance. Unfortunately, Zach’s arrival turns out like most of her life­—not as she’d hoped. Baxter deploys plenty of well-aimed barbs at the “capitalist hellhole mainstream media,” but the unrelentingly negative and shallow Natasha remains underdeveloped. This doesn’t make much of an impression. Agent: Dan Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc. (Aug.)