The Pisces: A Novel
LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
“Bold, virtuosic, addictive, erotic – there is nothing like The Pisces. I have no idea how Broder does it, but I loved every dark and sublime page of it.” —Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter
Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for nine years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika's home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety — not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound's easy affection.
Everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy’s understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn. A masterful blend of vivid realism and giddy fantasy, pairing hilarious frankness with pulse-racing eroticism, THE PISCES is a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman: a figure of Sirenic fantasy whose very existence pushes Lucy to question everything she thought she knew about love, lust, and meaning in the one life we have.
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
“Bold, virtuosic, addictive, erotic – there is nothing like The Pisces. I have no idea how Broder does it, but I loved every dark and sublime page of it.” —Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter
Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for nine years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika's home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety — not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound's easy affection.
Everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy’s understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn. A masterful blend of vivid realism and giddy fantasy, pairing hilarious frankness with pulse-racing eroticism, THE PISCES is a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman: a figure of Sirenic fantasy whose very existence pushes Lucy to question everything she thought she knew about love, lust, and meaning in the one life we have.
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Community Reviews
Read this via audiobook. This was... not good. I suppose it wasn't terrible either. Unfortunately, I think the author was trying too hard to be profound and honestly just ended up spewing a load of crap throughout the entire book.
You spend the entire book in the mind of the MC, who is a screwed up middle-aged woman who has no purpose in life and seems to screw up everything that comes her way. Not in a "cute, trying to find herself way," moreso in a "crash and burn, screw a bunch of men, and accidentally kill my sister's dog" kind of way.
I really hated the main character, and I was absolutely rooting against her. She's depressed and miserable and doesn't try to help herself or anyone else, for that matter. I honestly wish she had drowned herself in the end. It would have made for a better ending and overall book.
I get that the merman/siren was really more of a metaphor than anything and served his purpose, but it was just weird. Just be prepared for graphic language and sex scenes, including feces and period blood. I also hate how she talks about being attracted to the merman but, in the same thought, thinks about eating his tail fried with garlic butter. This was somehow more disturbing to me than her having sex with her Uber driver and letting him cum inside of her.
This book was rough, and I think I might be clinically depressed after reading it. No thanks, I will not be picking up other books from this author. Please spare yourself the trouble.
You spend the entire book in the mind of the MC, who is a screwed up middle-aged woman who has no purpose in life and seems to screw up everything that comes her way. Not in a "cute, trying to find herself way," moreso in a "crash and burn, screw a bunch of men, and accidentally kill my sister's dog" kind of way.
I really hated the main character, and I was absolutely rooting against her. She's depressed and miserable and doesn't try to help herself or anyone else, for that matter. I honestly wish she had drowned herself in the end. It would have made for a better ending and overall book.
I get that the merman/siren was really more of a metaphor than anything and served his purpose, but it was just weird. Just be prepared for graphic language and sex scenes, including feces and period blood. I also hate how she talks about being attracted to the merman but, in the same thought, thinks about eating his tail fried with garlic butter. This was somehow more disturbing to me than her having sex with her Uber driver and letting him cum inside of her.
This book was rough, and I think I might be clinically depressed after reading it. No thanks, I will not be picking up other books from this author. Please spare yourself the trouble.
What the f**k did I just read?
I picked up The Pisces by Melissa Broder for a book club, and I’m still reeling. It opens with a bizarre ode to a diabetic foxhound’s poop and somehow spirals deeper from there. This novel is marketed as a “sexy, hilarious, and fearless” look at love addiction and self-destruction—but what I experienced was a deeply disturbing descent into a woman’s untreated mental health crisis, with absolutely no meaningful resolution.
Lucy, our main character, is selfish, erratic, obsessive, and so deeply disconnected from reality that it’s hard to tell whether she needs a hug or a psych hold. She’s writing a dissertation on Sappho (which never amounts to anything), is court-ordered to therapy after assaulting her ex, and drags a literal merman into her sister’s house for sex while tranquilizing and ultimately killing the diabetic family dog. Yes. That’s the plot.
The merman storyline could have been a weird, interesting metaphor—but it’s overshadowed by Lucy’s endless internal monologue and impulsive self-harming behaviors. And it’s not just that Lucy is unlikeable—she’s dangerous. To herself, to others, to pets, to anyone with a shred of decency. The sex is gross and not remotely erotic. The emotional damage she inflicts on those around her is treated like a quirky character trait. Her sister’s heartbreak over the death of her beloved dog? Glossed over. Lucy’s decision to leave her sobbing sister and dive back into danger? Romanticized. The merman’s 17 other victims? Casual footnote.
The book tries to say something about love as a drug, about limerence and annihilation and identity collapse. But it says it so carelessly and with such little grounding in reality that it feels more exploitative than insightful. I’m all for reading flawed characters, but Lucy isn’t flawed—she’s completely untethered.
If this was meant to be a critique of toxic romanticization or a satire of millennial angst, it missed the mark by a mile. I finished the book feeling sad, grossed out, and genuinely angry that no one—not one person—in Lucy’s life ever stopped her spiral. And worst of all? The author seems to think this was edgy, or brave. It wasn’t. It was disturbing.
Do not recommend.
The Pisces just wasn’t for me. While it wasn’t torturous to get through—mainly because it’s short—I honestly could’ve gone without reading it at all. The story follows Lucy, a woman so desperate to feel loved that she’ll latch onto anything that gives her the slightest emotional fix. She’s constantly chasing validation, clearly struggling with her own mental health, and unable to see situations for what they truly are. I spent most of the book feeling sorry for her, wanting to shake her and say, “This isn’t the way!” The premise started out strong, and I thought it might turn into something deeper or more meaningful, but it quickly fell flat. I kept waiting for it to pick up again, and it just… never did. By the time we got to the ending, it felt rushed and unsatisfying.
Overall, The Pisces missed the mark for me. Don’t waste your time.
3.75/5
The explosive end of a long term relationship has left Lucy depressed, with a restraining order, and court ordered therapy. Fleeing the desert for sunny California, on her sister's insistence, all she has to do is attend group therapy, housesit, take care of Dominic, the sweetest little dog, and perhaps work on her thesis on Sappho. But healing isn't easy, specially when you don't believe you're the problem, and it's easy to get distracted. Things get out of control when a mysterious surfer with a secret catches Lucy's obsessive attention, sending her on a different path altogether.
The summary calls this "a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman" but that's not what this is really about. This is sad girl lit fic. It's navel gazey, it's existential. You either get it or you don't, there's no inbetween. Did I like this? Did I enjoy this? I'm not sure, but I can't say I hated it. Lucy is a difficult character. She's unlikeable, on a downwards spiral, but this condition makes her able to see the world in a different way and to probe at the status quo. Through her exaggeration of reality shine little pearls of wisdom and reflections about life. Mostly this book, to me, showed that recovery isn't lineal. It's hard work, and it's normal to backslide and crash and burn.
The merman bit was interesting but I would have liked it to go farther. Listen I'm not saying that I wanted the fish dick to be wilder but that's exactly what I'm saying. This book does deal with a lot of ugly and bizarre sexual situation that might make your face scrunch up. It also has a loooot of trigger warnings, so be careful. TW: suicide, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, animal abuse, and the dog does die :(
I had felt, for a long time, that if I started crying I would not stop—that if I finally ripped, there would be nothing to stop my guts from falling out. I was scared of what might come out of me: the things I would see, what others would see. I was scared the feelings would eat me.
The explosive end of a long term relationship has left Lucy depressed, with a restraining order, and court ordered therapy. Fleeing the desert for sunny California, on her sister's insistence, all she has to do is attend group therapy, housesit, take care of Dominic, the sweetest little dog, and perhaps work on her thesis on Sappho. But healing isn't easy, specially when you don't believe you're the problem, and it's easy to get distracted. Things get out of control when a mysterious surfer with a secret catches Lucy's obsessive attention, sending her on a different path altogether.
The summary calls this "a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman" but that's not what this is really about. This is sad girl lit fic. It's navel gazey, it's existential. You either get it or you don't, there's no inbetween. Did I like this? Did I enjoy this? I'm not sure, but I can't say I hated it. Lucy is a difficult character. She's unlikeable, on a downwards spiral, but this condition makes her able to see the world in a different way and to probe at the status quo. Through her exaggeration of reality shine little pearls of wisdom and reflections about life. Mostly this book, to me, showed that recovery isn't lineal. It's hard work, and it's normal to backslide and crash and burn.
The merman bit was interesting but I would have liked it to go farther. Listen I'm not saying that I wanted the fish dick to be wilder but that's exactly what I'm saying. This book does deal with a lot of ugly and bizarre sexual situation that might make your face scrunch up. It also has a loooot of trigger warnings, so be careful. TW: suicide, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, animal abuse, and the dog does die :(
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