Set in a pre-apocalyptic world, the story follows a young Instagram poet who embarks on a romantic relationship with a California billionaire. He offers her a time machine that holds the promise of restoring normalcy to their chaotic lives. As they navigate their unconventional romance, themes of love, hope, and the quest for stability emerge against a backdrop of impending doom.
Kim: A Novel Idea is a graphic literary novel about a lonely millennial named Frankie, her boyfriend Jacob, their talking cat Catman, and an unhealthy obsession with Kim Kardashian. Faced with the difficulties of her life--her boyfriend's grief, her fear of failure, her sexual past, her millennial malaise--scrolling through photos of an uber-celebrity is the only way Frankie knows how to cope through escape. Kim: A Novel Idea gives us insight into the downfalls of contemporary living while asking: are digital identities the cure, or the poison to waking life? Kim: A Novel Idea is hilarious in the sense that it's brutally honest; real in the sense that it's relatable. Exploring politics--personal, political, social--to comment on university writing programs, intergenerational wealth, fame, #MeToo, love, and our multiple selves, there is something lovable about Frankie's insufferable attitude towards life; something deeply relatable about her self-doubt in convincing herself she's "never going to make anything of my goddamn, pathetic life." Why? Because, like us, Frankie is stuck in a capitalist cycle of celebrity marketing rings that target young women's insecurities about their bodies and accomplishments.
Someone at a party describes you as an "indoor girl." What does that even mean? You don’t know, but you spend the rest of the week obsessing over it. You binge-watch three seasons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians in two days. You buy a pet turtle. You absentmindedly paint what ends up looking like your high school football coach, but naked. You go on a trip to Australia for a few months. You try to speak with a New York accent in public, just to see if people will like you better that way. But the comment still haunts you. An "indoor girl." You feel like it’s you, even if it’s not. In these funny stories that make you laugh or cry, Frankie Barnet gives voice to girls who are often confused, rejected, aimless, disillusioned, or misunderstood, watching their lives pass by like watching someone fall on the sidewalk across the street. With her quirky and deadpan writing, Barnet confronts us with the anxieties and hopes of young women today.