The Pisces

Essayist/poet Broder voiced her previous audiobooks So Sad Today and Last Sext, and she's the natural choice to narrate her first novel. She reads here with firm, measured precision, determined to keep moving forward steadily, as if she knows she's got a page-turner listeners won't be able to turn off. After breaking her ex-lover's nose and possibly attempting suicide with nine Ambien and too many donuts, Lucy leaves Phoenix (and her still-unfinished-after-almost-a-decade dissertation) for her sister's luxurious Venice Beach glass fortress. Paid to babysit Annika's diabetic foxhound (so Annika and her husband can wander Europe relatively guilt-free), Lucy has also reluctantly agreed to attend a "group-therapy program for sex and love addiction." After a few demeaning Tinder disasters, Lucy finds herself involved with someone she initially thought was a young surfer but who turns out to be an ancient merman. Enabled by a child's red wagon and dog tranquilizers, the affair turns epic—until it isn't.