A Novel Obsession by Caitlin Barasch
Review of A Novel Obsession by Caitlin Barasch
“I told myself not to take it personally—if they truly didn’t know me, if I hadn’t let them in, then the person they were rejecting was definitely not-me.”
A Novel Obsession by Caitlin Barasch (2022). Published by Dutton.
I am a graduate student in the nighttime, after a long day of writing and work, and because I commute from my home to campus, I have about thirty minutes each way.
I don’t listen to music, so a habit I picked up on the way to school is checking out audiobooks on Libby, which I downloaded on my phone, and listening to books as I drive. It’s been a great habit and forced me to think about writing as it translates to audio, which helped my craft as a whole, but I’ve also discovered new books this way because the things I really want to read I’ll typically check out as a physical copy.
I found this book, A Novel Obsession, one the debut authors list my library had curated for Libby, and decided to give it a chance. I like to read about writers, especially in New York City, because it’s kind of a nostalgic element for me in a way.
As a writer who lived in New York City, I miss it. I can’t afford it, but I like to hear about others who have their trust funds, like this protagonist. There’s a lot to say about this protagonist, but let’s begin the review before I get into it too deep.
A writer goes too deep as she stalks her current boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend.
Naomi Ackerman, trust fund baby, is twenty-four and works at a bookshop. She wants to write a novel badly, as it probably would also please her father, an NYU literature professor, and for the sake of her own ego. She’s found the perfect man through the dating apps and seemingly has a somewhat happy relationship with the guy. He’s Welsh and his name is Caleb.
The catalyst for this story starts out when she discovers who his ex-girlfriend is. Her name is Rosemary and she works in the New York City publishing scene, and, much to Naomi’s jealousy, still has pictures of Caleb up on her Facebook.
Thus begins a cycle of stalking Rosemary on Instagram. Naomi makes a fake account in order to gain access to Rosemary’s private Instagram, then full on elevates it to all new levels when she starts going to the same places that Rosemary frequents.
She has become full on obsessed with Rosemary to the point when Caleb and she are having sex, she begins to imagine that she is actually his ex-girlfriend. Caleb probably notices that this is going on in a lowkey manner, too, because Naomi keeps asking these really random small questions about Rosemary.
Then it crosses into new territory when Naomi actually befriends Rosemary and they become friends. She does this under a fake name and makes up a boyfriend, feeding her all these lies about who she actually is. At the same time, Naomi begins writing her novel about this, and makes the ultimate dumb mistake of hiring Rosemary as her literary editor.
She pays Rosemary to edit the scenes of the novel she is writing, which are clearly based on what’s happening right now, and expects Rosemary to not figure it out. She begins to claim she has some of the same interests, like rock climbing, and even shows up to her neighborhood sometimes.
This is clearly taking writing to an all new level, especially when Naomi digs deeper into this hole. Her father even ends up revealing he taught Rosemary at NYU when she was an undergraduate there, making the stakes even more personal in her obsessive game. At the same time, things start to be getting more serious with Caleb when she travels to his hometown and meets his mother. It seems like everything finally is going well for Naomi when, suddenly, it doesn’t.
However, one can only dig this hole so deep before the truth comes out. One night, she goes to a concert with Caleb in Brooklyn and she spots that Rosemary is there.
Hoping that Rosemary didn’t see them together, Naomi runs into the bathroom and hides in there, but Rosemary ends up coming inside of it and they chat for a bit.
Rosemary makes a comment about how Caleb is there, and Naomi thinks she’s off the hook, but then, not long after that, she wakes up one day and finds out Rosemary published an entire article compiling everything she’s done online. It goes viral, and Caleb, not wanting to see Naomi anymore, tells her to never see him again. Then the book ends.
I wish I could offer more synopsis on this book, but I don’t think I can really do so without feeling some kind of repetitiveness. This is a psychological novel about obsession, hence the title, and it really comes across in how repetitive the scenes are.
The main character is honestly kind of intolerable, as some of the things she says and does will have you shaking your head a lot. It’s a completely idiotic move to make Rosemary read the excerpts of the novel you’re literally writing about her, but I think that’s theme of a lot of what this character is doing. This book really sucks you into her head with the first person perspective, and even if you don’t like her, the novel does a great job of making you realize the full scope of what’s happening.
Overall Thoughts
I ate this novel up. Some parts were pretty uncomfortable, as some of the sex scenes were fairly graphic and kind of out of place when it came to the entire writing as a whole.
There’s a lot to say about this novel and the current age we live in. It becomes so easy to make friends with someone and then find out they stalked you beforehand on social media, and they may not actually be as friendly as you thought they were.
People can concoct all new lives and identities, and while the truth comes out in this novel, some people may never find out the truth in their own lives. It’s honestly kind of horrifying. It’s a fairly solid debut, check it out at the library if you can.
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