An exhilarating debut story collection that, with comedic precision and compulsive irreverence, explores the most surreal and inadmissible fantasies of contemporary women.
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A lonely woman’s intruder fantasy comes true, a middle school gym teachers awaits an email that is going to change her life, a Buddhist attempts to restore her ego by joining a support group for the prematurely enlightened, and a ghost baby desperately tries to will his parents to have sex. BAD THOUGHTS journeys inside the subterranean realm of a woman's psyche where her most feral instincts reign; revealing the horror and absurdity of living inside a mind.
Banal ruminations on how to sound normal on the phone, and where Danish people are from rub up against weighty, existential meditations like, am I bad person? and have I wasted my life? Alic conjures these thoughts with a voice that is instantly arresting, unexpectedly hilarious, and absolutely unforgettable.
Praise
“Nada Alic is one of the funniest writers I’ve read in a long time, but she also writes extremely well about the melancholic, detached, and disillusioned aspects of her characters.
—Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else
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“Nada Alic’s Bad Thoughts is lit up with the perception, wit, and cunning of Miranda July and Sally Rooney.
—T. Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
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“I raced through this book, reveling in its dark wit and unexpected sexiness. It’s easy to see myself in Alic’s characters dripping with directionless desire, aching for meaning and connection.”
—Leah Dieterich, author of Vanishing Twins
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“If you are human, and have private thoughts that make you feel wild, Alic’s words will make you feel at home on this planet.”
—Jedidiah Jenkins, New York Times bestselling author of To Shake the Sleeping Self
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“The stories in Nada Alic’s Bad Thoughts will make you laugh in every paragraph, yet are so grounded in the foibles of human existence that they will also leave you feeling immensely wiser.
—Meredith Talusan, award-winning journalist and author of Fairest
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"It isn’t easy to make this reader laugh, yet while reading Bad Thoughts, I found myself in the throes. Alic’s keen eye for detail and almost exalted portrayal of human suffering had me shook."
—Shy Watson for Southwest Review
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