Mood Swings

Entertaining and wholly original. A recommended purchase for collections where offbeat litfic is popular.

Mood Swings completely flipped my head around and made me rethink dystopian and climate fiction. This book kept me curious and frankly guessing the entire time because it's so delicately woven and so surprising in both the language and plot development. I really appreciated how this book covered sexual violence, bodily autonomy, and consent while in an apocalyptic setting, and the references to social media and Instagram poets kept me chuckling but also mortified. This one feels like a great combination of RO Kwon's The Incendiaries meets Allegra Hyde's The Last Catastrophe.

Engaging, witty, and hilarious. Mood Swings felt like a fresh take on the dystopian genre. One of the most unique books I have read for a long time, and one that I won't be forgetting any time soon. Absolutely wonderful!

This book was wonderfully weird. I really liked the premise and writing style, the mix of normal prose and social media posts. I feel like every chapter had at least one line that was strikingly poignant. The only downside was I felt the ending was a bit underwhelming. But overall I had fun reading this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Astra House for the ARC!

What a delightful weirdo of a read. From the jump, Mood Swings slams with a dystopian potpourri that can overwhelm — and that’s the point. Part satire, part existential dread, Barnet’s sharp, yet not-too-serious commentary on the future is worth all the wackiness within.

I love the prose in this very trendy, off-beat debut lit fic, but the plot fell a little flat for me. But really, the plot wasn't the point here. What is it like to be a young person when the world is falling apart, when your ambitions haven't even really developed yet? What is hope when good things have kind of disappeared?

Darkly funny. Gorgeous attention to language. Also, that cover is incredible.

MOOD SWINGS is an absolutely bonkers book and I think I loved it. Maybe. It will certainly stay with me, at the very least. It's unlike anything I've read, but at the same time, felt a lot of MADE FOR LOVE by Alissa Nutting vibes. My second book in a row about climate apocalypse! It's obvious that this book is not an easy read, and certainly stay away if you don't like the idea of all the animals in the world dying.

We follow two disaffected 20-something women who are passively affected by the changes in the world (weird weather, weird cults, weird billionaires). They have cancelled boyfriends and an apartment that may or may not have burned down on purpose. They are poets, but don't really write anything. Jenlena and Daphne are the climate antiheros we rarely see in literature and Barnet's frank wit, cutting commentary, and truly unique prose make this a once in a lifetime book. It's weird and wonderful.

I have not laughed so hard reading in years (ok, since Book of Ayn, but still! there are few books that can make me cackle like thus). MOOD SWINGS is a riotous gem of a novel. I didn't want it to end. I can't wait for Barnet's next. Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!

This was such an unexpectedly fun read!! Went into this with no clue of the premise (I just really loved the weird cover haha), and couldn't put this down. The pacing was perfect, the characters full of heart and oddness, and the premise so entertaining. This book reminded me how much I love dystopian and climate-change awareness books. Would have loved more time with certain characters and less with some, but overall I'd highly recommend this book!! Thank you to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for this book!

A wonderfully weird book! This kept me guessing and on my toes the whole read. I liked the writing style and it was just so unique. The ending wasn’t my favorite but overall I liked it!

I LOVE ABSURDIST FICTION!!!!!!!!!

I am so thankful to Astra House Publishing, Frankie Barnet, and Netgalley for granting me advanced digital and physical access to this delusional bitty before it hits shelves on May 21, 2024.

The world is on the cusp of ending, especially after the siege where all the animals decided to start attacking humans and ended up dead by a sonic frequency release, orchestrated by Rodrick Maeve, a tech-startup billionaire... Yep, you read all of that right... we're in delulu land with this one.

Jenlena and her roommate Daphne are doing their best to survive after the animals attempted a full takeover, and they keep losing people they know to the Moon Bethlehems. This violent activist group stands for climate change/weather support and commits crimes against fracking and other oil refineries to make their vision known. Jenlena's stepfather, Christopher, works at one of these refineries and is no stranger to their harassment. Daphne is dating a canceled man named Jordan, who slept with and abused a minor to further his music career. I guess. All this is to say that everyone is realistically doing what they can to survive.

When Rodrick Maeve announces his latest invention—the time machine—everyone freaks out and praises this celebrity for his innovative ideas. They hold out hope for a day when the animals can come back, and things can resemble more normality. Jenlena starts sleeping with Rodrick, and her crew is anxious to hear the outcomes of their decaying world.

Told in an absurdist, fictional manner, Mood Swings is very reminiscent of the mood swings and meltdowns that our world experiences daily. Will there be another world war? Is climate change killing us all? When will cars fly? All this to say that I enjoyed such reflective fiction and look forward to more of Frankie Barnet's work to come.

Mood Swings is a delightfully weird romp through Gen Z, social media, and environmental collapse, complete with an Elon Musk cameo character! Each sentence was equally bizarre and hilarious, and I appreciated the author's ability to craft something so unique and yet so relatable. I especially love books with protagonists who are bad at things, and Jenlena's horrendous poetry really hit the spot. Would recommend if you like colorful prose, inventive plot lines, and unsympathetic characters!

This was absolutely absurd and completely unhinged. It was so much fun and at times hilarious but definitely will not be for everyone. I'd say read this if you enjoy satire and aren't looking to take something too seriously. Thank you @netgalley and Astra House publishing for the advanced copy!

The animals were hilarious. What an insane and ridiculous premise to start the book out on. The entire book was really funny in a dark sick and twisted type of way.

this is my favorite book of 2024 so far! i loved the plot and the altering storylines. 10/10 - will be recommending to anyone who will listen!

This is an amazing debut that blurs genre lines and creates a lyrically beautiful end of the world scenario. In this book the weather is changing, and the animals have started a revolt. Humanity is confined to their homes as towns are overtaken and residents are terrorized. The only way left to save humanity is to take away what we value most, the animals that sustain us. The story follows Jenlena and Daphne, two women in their early twenties trying to find their place in the post-fauna world. Daphne is stuck in a holding pattern, dating a cancelled man and shunned from her friends. When a billionaire promises to build a time machine to fix the environment, she sees it as her chance to reboot her life as well. Her depression begins to fade as she imagines a world in which she is saved. Jenlena is adapting to the new world. She finds ways to capitalize on the grief that is abundant in the world, but the time machine would leave her with nothing. When Jenlena meets a billionaire from California she begins to see the underbelly of extreme wealth and power, as well as a way out when things ultimately change again. This book is smart and moving. It touches on current issues in an absurd and almost comical way, while still giving the darker themes the grace they deserve. The entire story is the alarm bell of late-stage capitalism that forces the reader to think about where the world is heading. There is a reason the younger generations are disaffected, depressed and filled with dread, and chances are there will be no time machine to save humanity from itself. This is definitely a unique story that is just as wild as the cover.

I love absurdist fiction and this was very much that. I loved the weirdly off world Barnet created and its anti-capitalist tone with a healthy dose of existential dread. Everything here was ridiculous and at the same time plausible.It took me a bit to get used to the writing style as it jumps around some. While some characters definitely had parallels to recognizable people, I thought the characterizations were still unique and well done. I can’t say I connected to any of the characters, but I think I got where they were coming from. I think this will really appeal to weird-lit connoisseurs.

Thank you co much to Astra House for the ARC of this one!

This novel tonally reminds me of Maniac (the Netflix show), Bojack Horseman, Derry Girls, No One is Talking about this by Patricia Lockwood, and Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, in a way that was utterly original. It covered topics like unethical billionaires, "cancelled" men, climate change, female friendships in your twenties, but in a new way that I appreciated, The author presents characters who are cancelled themselves and are dating cancelled people without judgment and allows the reader to experience their thoughts without a filter. I would recommend this book to anyone who regularly consumes social media content and listicles and enjoys novels that take place in apocalyptic worlds that are otherwise almost exactly like our own.

This utterly original novel is set in a recognizable future where the world is beset with massive droughts, a military coup, drowning migrants, starving children, multiple suicides on the world stage and “the siege,” an uprising of the animals, both domestic and wild, who revolt creating havoc (a woman in Spain was raped by dolphins, a pet rabbit tore out its owner’s eyes). A California billionaire Roderick Maeve (whose back story makes him a fully fleshed character) funded the manufacture of a sonic signal that killed them all. After defeating the animals, Maeve was initially feted on all the morning television shows, but then he was vilified.

Enter Jenlena and her roommate, Daphene. The two women met in college and “[i]t may have been the first time in history that a tall girl and a short girl had bonded so quickly.” Their other friends didn’t understand the relationship, “They’ll never be able to wear the same clothes.”

Jenlena lacked ambition. She said that when she graduated college she would “just probably well like, I dunno.” She believed in mediocrity. “Yes, it was a choice, but it also came naturally to her and it felt good.” She found “money a crude inconvenience, like going to the bathroom number two. Often, she skipped meals just to avoid thinking about it.” Jenlena’s lifestyle is supported by her stepfather who works in the oil industry. She supplements her stepfather’s generosity by selling stolen houseplants because, with the demise of the animals, people began to love plants “to a strange degree,” and by being paid to dress in a dog costume, which appealed to people who missed their pets.

By contrast, Daphene had always been “a good girl who studied hard and associated with the right people.” She won prizes for her poetry and had plans to attend graduate school, but something held her back, and she is working in a coffee shop. Daphene is dating a “canceled man,” Jordan Bellechasse, who found modest fame as a musician before it came out that he had punched his teenage girlfriend, Lisa Cicero, in the face, and that was it. “Firmly and irrevocably: canceled.”

This absurdist novel wouldn’t be complete without a cult, so Barnet presents the Moon Bethlehems, whose members jettison their first names, wear beige, and blame companies like Jenlena’s stepfather’s for climate change. Lisa Cicero joins the Moon Bethlehems, and her sister, Bonnie, claims it was because Jordan had showed her that the society where manipulation and violence were the norm was not worth participating in. “We’ve all become like someone on their deathbed, calling up our old transgressions and making apologies,” Lisa 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 accidentally meets Roderick in the lobby of a hotel and the two form an unlikely couple. Jenlena enjoys the exceptional privilege of being with Roderick while he focuses on building a time machine with the expectation that he can bring back both the animals and hope. The Moon Bethlehems protest Roderick’s plan because it would “erase the blame” of ecological collapse. This novel is playful and funny, but with genuinely sobering insights into a fraught world not much removed from our own. Thank you Astra House and Net Galley for an advance copy of a novel that I adored.

an existential MASTERPIECE 🦄

HAPPY PUB DAY to one of my new favorites, MOOD SWINGS by @francescafrancescafrancesca ! A huge thanks to @astrahousebooks for the arc ♥️

MOOD SWINGS opens in a preapocalyptic world where animals are rioting against humans for the planet’s environmental devastation. Forced into quarantine to protect themselves, humans find hope in none other than billionaire investor, Roderick Maeve. His solution? Eradicating all animals with a single, high-pitched noise. While no longer in immediate danger, general societal morale takes a plunge without their furry friends.

Amidst this new global depression, factions of radical environmental protestors gain momentum. To placate the people, Roderick Maeve pivots to a new solution: a time machine to undo both the extinction of fauna and our reliance on fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution. Following a band of connected characters and set in the not-so-distant future, MOOD SWINGS is both a cautionary tale of a global climate collapse and an allegory of late-stage capitalism and its absolute power of the one percent.

Y’all this book is 🤯. The opening chapter is the best literary hook that I’ve read in years. The diction is sharp, the humor is dark and witty, and the plot is accessibly speculative. MOOD SWINGS combines all the absurd, satirical, and existential elements I love from some of my absolute favorites: LAPVONA, INTERIOR CHINATOWN, and HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK.

This one still has me grappling with the pendulum swing of societal moods; as a species, humans love to dwell on the past and we love to forget it, too. But not to worry, a trick of the mind cures most! Distract with a shiny new toy (an iPhone? A time machine?), and you’ll have most citizens distracted enough from the corruption going on behind the curtain. While our current societal mood seems dire and galvanized, will it just swing back to contentment when the next shiny distraction comes along as a manipulation tactic, courtesy of those in power?

TL;DR- This book is a dark comedic metafiction with a full-circle plot that’s both satisfying and infuriating. A thought-provoking must read. Officially out on 5/21!

Thank you NetGalley and Astra publishing for the advanced copy of Mood Swings. I loved this, just everything about it. I'm going to be honest, I requested this solely based on the cover...I mean, look at it! This was smart, dark, unsettling and really funny. The characters were a little crazy, the whole premise is out there but that's what I've been into this year and the whole thing just completely worked for me. I don't think this will be for everyone, but if it sounds remotely interesting to you or you're into weird books as much as I am then go for it.