The Optimist

How to Build a Girl meets Fleabag in this sparkling novel about coming of age and the agony of modern relationships

Meet Tabitha Gray, a delusional girl from Topanga, California, who redefines what it means to be a truly hopeless romantic. Tabby suffers from an aggressive strain of cock-eyed optimism – no amount of failure, embarrassment or humiliation can dent her fierce belief that real, true, lasting love is just around the corner.

Where most people think, fantasise and dream, Tabby says, feels and does. Whether waiting in her lingerie for Harrison Ford to open the door of his hotel room; following Al Pacino around a Russian bathhouse; seeking passion with a blind man on the advice of a wise old woman with dementia; or sending intimate photos to a random sexter, Tabby refuses to be crushed by her many misadventures.

In this warmly witty novel, Sophie Kipner takes a satirical look at the extremity of romantic desperation, and pays tribute to the deep human need to keep on heroically searching for love despite our many absurdities.