Soft Core: A Novel
Feb 2025 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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352
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About this ebook
“Vivid . . . Exhilarating . . . Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail.” —The New York Times Book Review
A young woman’s madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell’s savage, tender Soft Core.
Ruth is lost. She’s living in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend Dino, a ketamine dealer with a lingerie habit, overdosing on television and regretting her master’s degree. When she starts dancing at a strip club, she becomes Baby Blue, seductress of crypto bros, outcasts, and old lovers alike. Plunged into this swirling underworld of beautiful women, fast cash, ungodly hours, and strangers’ secrets, Baby’s grip on reality begins to loosen. She is sure she can handle it—until one autumn morning when Dino disappears without a trace.
Thus begins a nocturnal quest for the one she still loves—through the misty hills of San Francisco; in dive bars and bus depots; at the BDSM dungeon where she takes a part-time gig. Along the way, she meets Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favors; a philosophizing suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, the beautiful and balletic new hire who reminds Baby of someone . . .
A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell’s Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.
A young woman’s madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell’s savage, tender Soft Core.
Ruth is lost. She’s living in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend Dino, a ketamine dealer with a lingerie habit, overdosing on television and regretting her master’s degree. When she starts dancing at a strip club, she becomes Baby Blue, seductress of crypto bros, outcasts, and old lovers alike. Plunged into this swirling underworld of beautiful women, fast cash, ungodly hours, and strangers’ secrets, Baby’s grip on reality begins to loosen. She is sure she can handle it—until one autumn morning when Dino disappears without a trace.
Thus begins a nocturnal quest for the one she still loves—through the misty hills of San Francisco; in dive bars and bus depots; at the BDSM dungeon where she takes a part-time gig. Along the way, she meets Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favors; a philosophizing suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, the beautiful and balletic new hire who reminds Baby of someone . . .
A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell’s Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.
“Vivid . . . Exhilarating . . . Soft Core is pacey and rich, full of verve, drama and detail.” —The New York Times Book Review
A young woman’s madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell’s savage, tender Soft Core.
Ruth is lost. She’s livi...
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Ratings and reviews
3 reviews
behrouz yaghmaeian
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September 6, 2026
مادر هرچی ایرانیه سگ گایید تنظیمات گوشی منو عوض نکن بیناموس فیس بوک و اینستاگرام من کو من اجازه ندادم به‌گوگل به اس ام اس و کالم دسترسی داشته باشه خونه زندگی من کو کس مادرا من دارو نمیخوام‌خونه میخوام پول میخوام کارای کیریتون با صاحب کارای کیریتون و نمیخوام مادر سگ اگه آدم دوست و خونواده و وطن داشته باشه تو خیابون نمیخوابه بهش دارو بدن بیناموس تو خیابون دوای کیر و خایه بهش نمیدن موقع رانندگی بهش دارو نمیدن آدم دوست و خونواده دار یه شب بیرون میخوابه نه یه سال یه کار عوض میکنه نه صدتا
Tom Manseau
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September 20, 2025
It's possibly a cure for insomnia, so there's that.
About the author
Brittany Newell is a writer and performer whose work has been published in Granta, n+1, The New York Times, Joyland, Dazed, and Playgirl. She published her debut novel, Oola, at the age of twenty-one. She lives in San Francisco, where she works as a professional dominatrix.
Brittany Newell is a writer and performer whose work has been published in Granta, n+1, The New York Times, Joyland, Dazed, and Playgirl. She published her debut novel, Oola, at the age of twenty-one. She lives in San Francisco, where she works as a professional dominatrix.
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