Millennial woman lost

Pip Finkemeyer’s Sad Girl Novel (Ultimo, $34.99 pb, 304 pp) is likely to divide readers, based on its title alone. For this reader, the immediate response was cynicism: another début about a young woman adrift and feeling sorry for herself? While unhappy women have populated art – and created it – for centuries, in 2023 the ‘sad girl’ is an aesthetic shorthand that conjures images of Ultraviolence-era Lana Del Rey, pale Tumblr girls with dripping makeup, Daisy Edgar-Jones in Normal People. Female pain, flattened into a marketable package.

In actuality, Finkemeyer’s titular sad girl, Kim Mueller, isn’t all that miserable. An Australian living in Berlin, Kim sees a therapist, whom she likes and does not need to pay. She is writing a ‘sad girl novel’, yet worries little about its specifics or how to support herself while she writes. Her Turkish-German bestie, Belinay, has inherited wealth, as does American literary agent love interest, Matthew, who inspires Kim to write full-time. The question of whether Kim’s pursuit is worthwhile is undercut by her lack of obligations and by her humorous, self-aware narration.

Kim’s voice is a highlight and lends sharpness to scenes that might otherwise lack direction. Whether detailing the disappointing bleakness of Frankfurt Book Fair or the fashion choices of Berghain fuckboi Benedict, her observations make her an enjoyable companion. Yet Kim’s self-awareness has a distancing effect, placing her – and the reader, by extension – at an ironic remove. It is difficult to care all that much, since Kim herself does not seem to care: about her novel, about art in general, about anything besides a vague longing for external validation.