We’re Novellic 👋 Expert book recommenders and book club community-builders since 2020 — and now we’re on Substack. Alongside our mobile app (download here!), we’ll be sharing thoughtfully curated collections of new releases across literary fiction, genre fiction, and non-fiction — for real readers, not algorithms. If you’re overwhelmed by BookTok and craving something more personal, you’re in the right place.
BOOKS FOR THE CHRONICALLY ONLINE
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For anyone who has ever lost an hour to a scroll, gone ten tabs deep on a stranger, or felt their brain quietly rewired by the internet: this list is for you. From Patricia Lockwood and Lauren Oyler to Jia Tolentino and Sheena Patel, these books capture the strange, funny, obsessive, and occasionally horrifying experience of being … perpetually online.
A woman famous for her life inside “the portal” travels the world speaking about the internet’s strange language, rituals and collective obsessions—until an urgent family crisis pulls her abruptly back into the physical world. Fragmentary, funny and devastating, Lockwood’s novel captures both the absurdity of the endless scroll and the human experiences that can still break through it.
When a young woman snoops through her boyfriend’s phone, she discovers he’s secretly behind a popular online conspiracy-theory account. After his unexpected death, she moves to Berlin and begins experimenting with identities of her own in this sharp, cynical novel about performance, authenticity and living online.
Across nine razor-sharp essays, Jia Tolentino examines the forces shaping contemporary life, from social media and reality television to scam culture and the pressure to constantly optimise ourselves. A brilliantly perceptive look at self-deception, identity and what the internet age has done to the way we see ourselves.
An unnamed woman becomes consumed by the man she is sleeping with—and, increasingly, by the woman she believes to be his other lover. Told through obsessive scrolling, digital sleuthing and endless online comparison, Patel’s addictive debut explores desire, power and what happens when internet fixation bleeds into real life.
When struggling writer June Hayward witnesses the sudden death of her more successful friend Athena Liu, she steals Athena’s unfinished manuscript and passes it off as her own. As the book becomes a publishing sensation, June’s carefully constructed story begins to unravel online in this biting satire of literary ambition, cultural appropriation and social-media pile-ons.
When PR employee Gerald somehow uploads his consciousness into his company’s Slack, his colleagues assume his increasingly frantic messages are just an elaborate attempt to work from home. Told entirely through workplace chat, this wildly inventive novel turns notifications, reaction GIFs and corporate group chats into an absurd portrait of modern working life.
Ola and Michael are a successful, soon-to-be-married couple whose relationship—and carefully constructed public image—is thrown into crisis when Michael’s name appears on an anonymous online list accusing men of abuse. A gripping exploration of social media, accountability and the pressure to make messy real life fit the certainty demanded online.
Remy and Alicia are stuck in dead-end jobs and an increasingly strange relationship, united by their obsession with Jen, a former coworker whose seemingly perfect life they follow on Instagram. When they finally enter Jen’s real world, their online fixation spirals into something much darker, stranger and more horrifying.
We hope you’ve found something that piques your interest! Until next time.
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Happy reading, book friends!