Bad Thoughts

May 30, 2022
In Alic’s candid and humorous debut collection, women explore their darkest thoughts and fears. The narrator in “My New Life” reflects on her alienation at a baby shower (“I sometimes worry that motherhood is contagious, like a parasite or the way cohabitating women synchronize their cycles”). There, she finds a kindred spirit in Mona, who sets up a dating profile despite being married. In “Tug Spin Release,” the narrator, a gym teacher, attends a bachelorette party in Cabo, where she holds out for an unlikely acceptance from a writing residency. In Cabo, she feels increasingly isolated from the others as they overshare about their lives. In “The Party,” the narrator and her boyfriend take a quiz from a swank bedding company before selecting their pricey sheets, and face their ambivalence over whether they want children. Later, afraid she’s having a dangerous reaction to an ecstasy pill, the narrator calls a telehealth line and confides in the doctor about her life, a “conga line of disappointments” in which she’s “getting less young and more old at the same time.” As the characters wrestle with what’s missing from their lives, the author finds mordant hilarity. The more Alic leans into the weirdness, the more addictive this becomes. Agent: Marya Spence, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

Starred review from June 10, 2024

As the title suggests, Alic's debut collection of short stories take place mostly through the "bad" thoughts of the narrators--privileged West Coast millennial women who have friendships that enrage them and relationships that bore them, and they live in a world that is indifferent to them. With the author reading the audiobook and each story having a similar literary voice, it can be difficult to differentiate the stories from one another. However, the overarching omniscient narrator contains multitudes and has an ironic sense of humor that keeps listeners engaged. Between each story are interstitials that mainly consist of one-line observations that showcase Alic's humor. The nuances of the interpersonal relationships feel real despite some surreal plots. This doesn't mean the relationships are without toxicity or that the characters are particularly likable, but overall, they reveal that women's interior life is often messy, dark, and unconventional. Alic wrote what she knows for her debut, and she succeeded. VERDICT For those that enjoyed Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch and Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation, this is a great addition to the genre that might be called "millennial ennui."--Laura Stein

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