Barbara the Slut and Other People
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Become an affiliate"Holmes brings a cool, stripped-down wit to Slut's 10 shaggy-dog stories...loopy, deadpan and accidentally-on-purpose profound" --Entertainment Weekly "With polished prose and a wry dash of Miranda July-esque humor, Holmes has created a normcore cast of characters who stumble to communicate, withhold their true identities, and soldier through the slow letdowns of life...Like a shot of espresso, these tales awaken the senses and invigorate the daily grind."--O, The Oprah Magazine "[Barbara] comically skewer[s] contemporary culture." -Time "Lauren Holmes's characters are so recognizable, you'll forget it's fiction." --Marie Claire
"Simultaneously hilarious and deeply insightful. Written with honesty and heart, Holmes's characters are delightfully real." --Buzzfeed, "Awesome New Books to Read This Summer" "From start to finish, this funny debut collection slyly shines a light on taboo without taking itself too seriously. Holmes' frank prose sings with simplicity... Each story swells with the possibility of youth, and together these stories question whether that possibility can coexist alongside an authenticity of the heart." --Ploughshares "A highly entertaining short story collection with just a killer cover." --Bookriot "[Barbara] might be the literary answer to certain HBO shows... [but] Holmes's voice--at once sharp and empathetic--is all her own." --Conde Nast Traveler "This is not your typical English professor-curated collection of short stories...Holmes's writing is sharp but not scathing, and she captures her story's sympathetic underdogs with humor, wit and heart."--Skidmore News
"Holmes hits it out of the park with her first short-story collection, a modern and funny look at the world through the eyes of everyone."--Pure Wow "Youthful and vibrant, each one of these 10 short stories crackles with energy and a love of language that never descends into navel-gazing indulgence... If someone uses the word 'millennial' as a negative when discussing this collection, ignore him: Holmes is a writer you're going to be hearing about for decades to come." --Barnes & Noble
"Super funny...honest [and] open" --Bustle "A funny, thoughtful debut." --LitHub "Smart and funny and startlingly poignant, this book does an especially good job of highlighting how underwhelming reality can be compared with one's imagination." --San Francisco Chronicle "In these 10 stories, Holmes shows she is uninterested in what people think of her, and more interested in painting portraits of very different women who all have one thing in common: they just want to be loved... It turns out the old saying is wrong; some books you can judge by their covers." - BUST, "OMG AMAZING" rating "The best short story collection we've read all summer." -PureWow "Holmes, with an admirable balance of humor and poignancy, tackles the choices we make in love, work, family and friendships... The characters in Barbara the Slut are likable, believable people, struggling to find themselves and the key to happiness...a fresh and thought-provoking read." -Bookbrowse, Editor's Choice "Hilarious and insightful." -Metro
"A dark, hilarious, and refreshingly honest collection of stories about love, intimacy, family, sex, coming out, and the slut-shaming culture that makes these experiences all the more difficult. Lauren Holmes's genius debut exposes the vulnerabilities of women, as well as their bravery and relatability."--Pop Sugar "These stories delight... Holmes has a sharp eye for the complexities of family dynamics...[and] captures something real and beautiful in this book." -Mediander "At times funny, at times crushingly sad, Holmes's book proves her to be a talented writer of fiction, asking readers to engage not only with who they are as individuals but also the world they live in together." -Shelf Awareness "First-time author Lauren Holmes has an uncanny way of breathing life into the fictional characters in her debut." -- "21 New Authors You Need to Know," Refinery 29 "Holmes has delivered an intelligent and humorous alternative to the standard summer romance novel." - Seattle Refined "The stories are freaking fantastic. Holmes has this way of capturing truths that make you feel a little uncomfortable but they are so compelling and so funny... Absolutely brilliant."--Bookriot "Holmes' deceptively breezy stories focus on women grappling with sexual politics and make important observations about challenges faced by millennials...Holmes...has a keen ear for dialogue and a sharp memory for the high school life." --Book Page "Easy-to-like stories about subjects you'd encounter on the Cut -- teenage girls, dogs, relationships, sex." --NYMag's The Cut, "A Book We're Reading Right Now" "This sharp, sensitive...unwaveringly perceptive debut collection...is eminently sympathetic, insightful, and revealing, never regarding its characters with ridicule or derision, always with respect and compassion...The people limned here are people we know. They may even be the people we are. A first-rate first collection from a young writer you'll want to hear more from." --Kirkus Reviews (starred) "Holmes' 10 tales smartly explore her characters' varied internalizations and vulnerabilities in light of the heavy influence of appearances and unwise attachments."--Booklist "An eminently readable debut from a fresh voice...Holmes writes with ease and humor...wonderful."--Publisher's Weekly (starred) "A Granta 2014 New Voice, Holmes explores a range of intriguing scenarios in this first collection... a writer to watch" --Library Journal "It's been a long time since I've read a collection of stories in one sitting--but this is a book I couldn't put down. . . . An outstanding debut, refreshing and exciting, complex and really funny." --Nathan Englander, author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank "A wonderful debut from a profound and sassy new voice . . . Lauren Holmes is a young writer of great talent, and Barbara the Slut is a book that marks the beginning of a long literary career." --Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin
"Lauren Holmes's stories are hilarious and moving and powerful and all that other stuff people seem to like in books, but that's not why they stay with you. They stay with you because she's articulating with devastating precision something unique about the strange times we live in, something unique about who we are and who we become as we navigate our way through the demands of our friends, our families, our culture, and the wild, unreasonable desires that well up within us." --Phil Klay, author of Redeployment
"An astonishing collection--one of those rare books that manages to be both poignant and hilarious. The last time we had a debut this big was Junot Díaz with Drown. Holmes is a major talent." --Philipp Meyer, author of The Son