– Winner of ALA’s 2026 Alex Award
– Finalist for the LA Times Book Prize
– Longlisted for the Crook’s Corner Book Prize
– A Debutiful Most Anticipated Book of 2025 & a Best Debut Book of 2025
➜ Order Plum from Hub City Books
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PRAISE for Plum
“This debut novel is told entirely in the second person, a bold move that injects the story with a special sort of hypersensitivity. Anderegg’s novel outlives its pages.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Andy Anderegg must have had her whole heart in her hands when she wrote this beautiful, devastating book about loss and abuse and siblinghood and survival. The language and style are so fully her own, a new exhilarating voice, you won’t be able to stop reading. I couldn’t. I inhaled it.”
—Deb Olin Unferth
“Anderegg debuts with a tour de force of second-person narration. Anderegg’s depiction of familial dysfunction and its lasting effects is pitch-perfect.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Plum is a truly original, tender, and heart-searing novel about the secrets we keep, all the ways a soul can be broken, and the lies we have to tell ourselves to move on. Andy Anderegg so beautifully captures the wrenching pain and wild joys of growing up and learning how to survive, and how to make a real, big life for yourself. I will never stop thinking about this book, it’s forever imprinted on my heart.”
—Crissy Van Meter
“The voice practically levitates. The author’s masterful control over point-of-view creates a story that glides through time with an unforgettable voice that feels intrinsically linked to “you,” me, anyone.”
—Kelly Dasta, The Los Angeles Review
“A vulnerable, visceral, and tender reckoning with the lasting imprint of early trauma, and the tangled love and longing for connection it weaves. Anderegg writes in a voice wholly her own, aching and haunting. Plum has echoed in my mind for weeks since I finished reading.”
—Sarah Gerard
“The second person perspective doesn’t serve to draw us closer to the narrative, as we might expect, as it does to excavate our heroine’s fractured sense of self and belonging in the world. A smart, utterly heartbreaking debut novel that captures the devastation of trauma throughout generations.”
—Ashleigh Bell Pedersen
“Plum is bananas. Anderegg’s style and prose are a breath of fresh air.”
—Debutiful, Most Anticipated Books of 2025 & a Best Debut Book of 2025
“A second-person marvel.”
—Lola Lee, Independent Book Review
“An immersive and propulsive novel … told with a disarming and poetic frankness that makes it difficult to put down and deeply moving. Anderegg’s razor-sharp attention to detail and penchant for metaphor [makes] this remarkable story of resilience so gripping.”
—Lou Turner, Chapter 16
“Even with such a spare plot, Anderegg has created a beautiful page-turner with an unforgettable perspective.”
—Annie Tully, Booklist
“[A] wise and touching novel. Written entirely in the second person, the book captures J’s sharp, brooding interior thoughts. She has a powerful command of details and startling discernment. Insightful, witty, and uplifting.”
—Kristen Rabe, Foreword Reviews
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ABOUT Plum
For fans of Sarah Rose Etter and Scott McClanahan, Plum is a darkly beautiful, unflinching novel about modern girlhood in the internet age, the daily toll of trauma, and the limits of love.
Told entirely in the second person, Plum follows J as she grows from kid to teen in a house ruled by her alcoholic dad and complicit mother. Her older brother is sometimes wonderful, sometimes gross, and he’s her only hope of getting out. J’s world is one of nail polish, above-ground pools, and drive-thrus—and of violence, carelessness, and so many rules. J covets the peace that comes when she slips on her headphones, turns on her handheld radio, and dreams of how she and her brother can make their escape.
When her brother leaves home and disappears, so does J’s best chance to flee her parents’ chaotic orbit. Alone and angry, J reaches through her computer screen for the life she wants: blonde hair, glittering nails, attention, freedom. As she stumbles into adulthood with no template to follow, J must figure out how to build a family for herself full of the love she deserves. In her brutally compelling debut, Anderegg turns her singular gaze on the generational patterns of addiction and abuse.
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ANDY ANDEREGG was born in Austin, Texas and lives in Los Angeles, California. She holds a BA from the University of Oklahoma and an MFA from the University of Kansas. Her work has appeared in Literary Hub and Electric Literature, and she is a contributing editor at Zona Motel. She co-writes Making Art at the End of the World, new editions out monthly.
Get in touch to talk about making art, sentences, and liberation, or to set up a classroom visit, book club, or virtual event.
