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“Darkly funny, psychologically rich and utterly addictive... [a] harrowing tale of twisty female friendships, slippery identity and furtive secrets.” —Megan Abbott, best-selling author of The Turnout
Hoping to escape the pain of the recent murder of her best friend, art student Zoe Beech finds herself studying abroad in the bohemian capital of Europe—Berlin. Rudderless, Zoe relies on the arrangements of fellow exchange student Hailey Mader, who idolizes Warhol and Britney Spears and wants nothing more than to be an art star.
When Hailey stumbles on a posting for a high-ceilinged, prewar sublet by well-known thriller writer Beatrice Becks, the girls snap it up. They soon spend their nights twisting through Berlin’s club scene and their days hungover. But are they being watched? Convinced that Beatrice intends to use their lives as inspiration for her next novel, Hailey vows to craft main-character-worthy personas. They begin hosting a decadent weekly nightclub in the apartment, finally gaining the notoriety they’ve been craving. Everyone wants an invitation to “Beatrice’s.” As the year unravels and events spiral out of control, they begin to wonder whose story they are living—and how it will end.
Other People’s Clothes brilliantly illuminates the sometimes dangerous intensity of female friendships, as well as offering an unforgettable window into millennial life and the lengths people will go to in order to eradicate emotional pain.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 1, 2022 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593507568
- File size: 309591 KB
- Duration: 10:44:58
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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December 6, 2021
Henkel’s engrossing debut stages a cat and mouse game between a novelist and two art students in which art bleeds (literally and profusely) into life and vice versa. In 2008, NYU art student Zoe travels to Berlin for a year abroad in search of European “dignity and reason” after her friend, Ivy, is murdered. She will find neither. Zoe’s Berlin roommate and classmate is Hailey, a conceptual artist obsessed with Law and Order SVU and Amanda Knox (that “sexed-up Joan of Arc”), and bent on achieving Warholian fame. They rent the apartment of bestselling pulp novelist Beatrice Becks. With Berlin’s “hedonistic wells still running deep,” Zoe and Hailey embrace the drug-fueled spectacle, meeting pretentious art world habitués, Habsburg descendants, and louche seducers who deliver lines like “I collect experiences and handblown glass, but my dad bought Richter early.” Soon Zoey and Hailey suspect Beatrice is reading their diaries and emails for plot material, and Hailey, petrified of them being “immortalized as losers,” conspires with Zoe to gin up drama. But as Beatrice’s interventions intensify and Hailey seeks to exploit Ivy’s tragic death for fame, Hailey and Zoe’s friendship and lives are jeopardized. The antics grow increasingly outlandish, but Henkel shines with her wry, well-observed portrait of the artist. In the end, this offers an intelligent dissection of the insatiable appetite for dead girl stories. -
August 1, 2022
Henkel's captivating debut takes listeners on an unsettling ride through the twists and turns of two art students' rapidly disintegrating lives. While studying abroad in Berlin, Zoe, grieving the recent murder of her best friend, connects with impulsive, privileged Hailey. At first, Zoe and Hailey are hopelessly awkward outsiders in the vibrant Berlin party scene, but everything changes when they sublet an apartment from popular author Beatrice Becks and her mother. The new apartment becomes a glittering locus point for wild, drug-and-sex-filled parties, pulling both women into an increasingly disorienting lifestyle. Their once stable relationship shifts into tension and paranoia, where nothing is as it seems. Narrator Lauryn Allman's low, steady voice is a perfect foil for the book's spiraling events, to which she brings a balancing note of melancholy. Allman's characterizations are superb, capturing a range of emotions, from the women's heady party-planning excitement to the sharp darkness of their growing suspicion and distrust. Hailey is particularly well-voiced, conveying her neediness and infectious optimism. VERDICT Highly recommended for fans of twisty psychological suspense in the vein of Stephanie Wrobel's This Might Hurt or Tara Isabella Burton's Social Creature.--Sarah Hashimoto
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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