Anna North's
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is a deceptive read: At first, you think you're going to get the life story of a fascinating young woman who's adept at telling the exact sort of lie she knows will enthrall an audience of hipsters. But that woman is just the first of a half-dozen different perspectives on the beguiling Sophie Stark, a filmmaker who hurricanes her way through other people's lives. She's a sort of magpie auteur, stealing other people's narratives and making them her cinematic own. North is superb at writing Stark in a way that's at once critical and sympathetic: Stark is the sort of toxic friend that so many of us have had in our lives, but it's essential to see why we fall for those women in the first place. If you like cinema or weird, spellbinding, complicated women, this book's for you.
Get a copy here. —Anne Helen Petersen (
@annehelen)
