Publishers Weekly
03/25/2024
Barnet follows up the graphic novel Kim: A Novel Idea with the bonkers story of a future without animals. Mammals and other creatures across the planet have been conducting organized as well as random acts of terror—raccoons destroyed a power plant, a chimpanzee ripped a kid’s face off, a pet rabbit tore out its owner’s eyes, and more. “It was like one day all the animals just got together and decided,” Barnet writes, implying the violence is in response to exploitation and ecological degradation by humans. Responding to the panic, American billionaire Roderick Maeve uses lethal sonic technology to kill all the animals on the planet. In this altered world, 22-year-old poet Jenlena spends a lot of time on Instagram, where pet cosplay is trending, and she gets a gig dressing up as a dog for people who miss their pets. After Jenlena ditches one of her clients, she has a chance meeting with Maeve, who’s currently building a time machine that would return people to a more harmonious past where animals exist. Barnet adds some lively dialectical discourse to the zany proceedings, as a pessimistic cult protests Maeve’s plan because it would “erase the blame” of ecological collapse. Despite the sobering material, this is a hoot. Agents: Audrey Crooks and Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (May)
From the Publisher
"Mood Swings is a master class in maximalism . . . The magic here is in the prose. Though the story itself is sprawling, Barnet’s writing is restrained and intentional. Moments that could turn saccharine are made meaningful by astute, almost insulting observations."
—Sarah Rose Etter, The New York Times Book Review
"A delicious satire that gripped me from the first sentence. Frankie Barnet is not only an architect of the surreal and the absurd, but something of an anthropologist keenly observing society's unique derangement. Mood Swings whips from devastation to euphoria with the same fluidity it takes to doomscroll until the sun rises."
—Layla Halabian, NYLON
★ "Barnet presents a canny portrait of the doomscroll generation, set in an absurdist near-future world . . . This is a sharp satire of a hyperonline culture, with genuinely moving insights into modern inequality and climate crisis throughout . . . This book is a great choice for fans of Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This (2021). An off-kilter, hauntingly hilarious debut novel."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A clever trick mirror for the 'extremely online,' Mood Swings deserves its devotees."
—Lauren Puckett-Pope, Elle
"[A] clever debut novel . . . a uniquely modern love story."
—Layla Halabian, NYLON
"[A] delightful debut novel . . . Ridiculously funny and as smart as satires come, Mood Swings is a pitch-perfect Instagram novel attuned for the modern age."
—Sam Franzini, Our Culture
"For a novel that doesn’t feature a single paradox, time loop, or change to history, Mood Swings offers up an incisive critique of time-travel narratives . . . [A] darkly satirical novel."
—Ian Mond, Locus
"[A] bonkers story . . . Despite the sobering material, this is a hoot."
—Publishers Weekly
"There is a lot in this novel that should feel deeply strange . . . And yet, this surreal world full of tech oligarchs and unmoored 20-somethings feels all too close to home, as if we’re looking at our current reality through a funhouse mirror."
—Bustle, "Most Anticipated" Book of Spring 2024
"Frankie Barnet's propulsive, wholly original novel probes our dark preoccupations and our sources of hope in a seemingly hopeless world. Whether digging into the consequences of climate change, the allure of tech billionaires, the repercussions of cancel culture, or the love/hate dynamics of intimate relationships, Barnet's singular voice is dazzling and unexpected. She has that rare ability to be at once poignant and genuinely fun, moving and totally hilarious. This book cracked my brain open in the best way possible—I'm obsessed and want everyone to read it!"
—Alexandra Chang, author of Days of Distraction
"What a wild ride—Frankie Barnet has written a fast, funny, witty, chilling first novel that, while ostensibly about a future or alternative reality, summons up the feeling of living in this reality with startling acuity."
—George Saunders, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo
"Mood Swings is a book of vicious wit and glittering, feral prose that lingers like a strange dream. Frankie Barnet possesses an enviable agility with language, zipping between characters with the jubilant chaos of a tilt-a-whirl and unspooling a deceptively devastating meditation on power, morality, and the end of the world. I couldn't stop reading once I started, and I can't stop talking about it now that I've finished. You'll want to hold its beating heart to yours; you'll want to keep it as a pet."
—Aiden Arata, artist and writer
Booker Prize–winning and #1 New York Times b George Saunders
What a wild ride—Frankie Barnet has written a fast, funny, witty, chilling first novel that, while ostensibly about a future or alternative reality, summons up the feeling of living in this reality with startling acuity.”
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2024-03-23
Barnet presents a canny portrait of the doomscroll generation, set in an absurdist near-future world.
Jenlena is 21 when animals finally seek vengeance on humans. After creatures of all sorts start attacking people around the world, California billionaire Roderick Maeve funds the development of a sonic signal that kills each and every animal on Earth. Jenlena and her best friend, Daphne, emerge into Quebec’s new normal with English degrees and little sense of purpose: Jenlena takes to stealing and reselling houseplants (which have become a stand-in for pets) and acting as a dog for hire for lonely customers, while Daphne works at a coffee shop and navigates dating a canceled musician named Jordan. Looming in every corner of this increasingly dreadful society, wracked by environmental disasters and political turmoil, are the Moon Bethlehems—a radical cult determined to save the planet. When Jenlena begins sleeping with the Roderick Maeve, the cult enemy no. 1 who is dead set on making time travel a reality, she is swept up in his exceptional privilege. This is a sharp satire of a hyperonline culture, with genuinely moving insights into modern inequality and climate crisis throughout. “We’ve all become like someone on their deathbed, calling up our old transgressions and making apologies,” Moon Bethlehem mouthpiece (and Jordan’s ex-girlfriend) Moon Cicero says. “It’s pretty easy, really, when you’ve got no real intention of changing. You know you don’t have to because you haven’t got the time.” Jenlena and her friends epitomize the wild oscillations between naïveté and cynicism that can define young adulthood, and, while each character is ridiculous at times, they are all delightfully multidimensional. In an apt formal choice, Barnet peppers in the “mental pollution” (as one character calls it) of the online world: she includes tweet-style posts and Instagram-angled poems (as well as a couple of pages of animal doodles and one single photo of Ted Cruz). This book is a great choice for fans of Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This (2021).
An off-kilter, hauntingly hilarious debut novel.
