"Sophie Kemp takes big swings with her 23-year-old narrator, Reality, whose name reflects only what she’s most out of touch with. Reality only wants to be the 'perfect girlfriend' to her idiot boyfriend, and the lengths she’ll go to achieve this perfection are both hilarious and horrifying."
—NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
"Kemp knows exactly what she’s doing, and tonally the novel is a feat, expertly switching between laughter, shock and heartache, sometimes in a heartbeat."
—THE GUARDIAN
"Kemp . . . is possessed of a voice like nobody else’s, and it’s deployed here to dazzling effect."
—VOGUE
"Freed from the mundane, or perhaps freed to transform the mundane into the absurd, the book thrums with energy, verging on ecstasy."
—LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS
"Offbeat, hilarious, and often dismal, Paradise Logic is the excavation of heterosexual desire our age deserves.”
—LITHUB, Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Description
“Here, at last, is someone doing something new.” —The New York Times
“The style is George Saunders meets Ottessa Moshfegh.” —The Guardian
“The funniest book of the year and one of the smartest.” —Gary Shteyngart
A hilarious, surreal, and devastating journey into the mind of Reality Kahn, a young woman on a quest to be the greatest girlfriend of all time.
It was decreed from the moment she was born. Twenty-three-year-old Reality Kahn would embark on a quest so great, so bold. She would become the greatest girlfriend of all time. She would be a zine maker, an aspiring notary, the greatest waterslide commercial actress on the Eastern Seaboard. She would receive messages from the beyond in the form of advice from the esteemed and ancient ladies magazine, Girlfriend Weekly.
When she attends a party in Gowanus at a punk venue known as “Paradise,” Reality meets Ariel, who will become her boyfriend. She bravely works for his everlasting affection and joins a clinical trial created by Dr. Zweig Altmann to help her become a more perfect girlfriend. She stars in a new commercial. She learns how to become an indelible host. But Reality will also learn that sheer will and determination, and a very open heart, are not always enough to make true love manifest.
At turns laugh-out-loud funny, tragic, and jarring, Reality’s quest grows ever complicated as the men in her life: Ariel, her waterpark commercial agent Jethro, and Dr. Altmann himself prove treacherous. Paradise Logic is a thrilling, psychosexual breakdown of our obsession with authentic true love, asking whether that is even possible in a patriarchal world, and announces Sophie Kemp as a wholly original, transformative, and brilliant new voice in fiction.
Reviews
"Prepare to read it at a frenetic pace, because it’s just too good to put down."
—AIR MAIL
"A mythic heroine, on an odyssey to apotheosize via girlfriendhood."
—HELL GATE
"Bizarre, brilliant . . . boldly funny and interesting."
—OUR CULTURE
"Kemp’s writing is ambitious and fresh while engaging with the recurring theme of women’s role as a vessel for men’s desires in a patriarchal society... With an impressive ear for rhythm, Kemp’s writing shines throughout this imaginative novel."
—BOOKLIST, Starred Review
"In Kemp's energetic debut, a young woman embarks on a quest to become 'the best girlfriend of all time'... The inventive conceit yields plenty of humor and incisive commentary. This funhouse portrait of the Brooklyn dating scene feels all too real."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY