A Very Nice Girl

LoveReading Says

Darkly funny and emotionally engaging, Imogen Crimp’s A Very Nice Girl explores the struggles, desires and conflicts faced by a fledging opera singer in expensive, competitive and often-lonely London. An absorbing story of finding strength and focus in the wake of trembling, debilitating crises of confidence unfolds as its protagonist, Anna, struggles to overcome a deep-rooted compulsion to be driven by what others say and think of her.

Though her insular parents believe she’d have been better off staying closer to home, Anna has accepted a scholarship to study opera at a prestigious London music school. But it’s not easy fitting into to the conservatory’s highly-strung, privileged culture, not least because Anna is struggling financially.

To pay her rent, she sings jazz at a bar in the City, and here meets Max, a financier fourteen years her senior. After a brief cat and mouse game when they first meet, they hook up, and agree to keep it simple - this isn’t a relationship; it’s sex, it’s companionship. But matters of the heart rarely remain simple and it’s not long before both Max and the opera demand much more than Anna can bear, rendering her fractured, casting her adrift, unsure of anything, except that something has to change.

She cannot remain in such a helpless situation, dependent on Max’s money, dependent on him emotionally, and feeling increasingly alienated from what was supposed to be her focus - opera.

In A Very Nice Girl Imogen Crimp has created a gripping coming of age story that explores a young woman’s shift from a state of lonely drifting to one of self-determination with enthralling compassion, wit, and considered pace.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
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About A Very Nice Girl

Selected for Malala's Book Club"Imogen Crimp's enjoyable debut novel... is an all-too-real reminder of what it is to be a woman in your 20s..." - The New York Times "Tender, devastating, witty. And deeply true. Sweetbitter meets Normal People."--Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and BlissA bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about ambition, sex, power, and love, Imogen Crimp's A Very Nice Girl cracks open the timeless questions of what it is to be young, what it is to want to be wanted, and what it is to find your calling but lose your way to it. Anna doesn't fit in. Not with her wealthy classmates at the selective London Conservatory where she unexpectedly wins a place after university, not with the family she left behind, and definitely not with Max, a man she meets in the bar where she sings for cash. He's everything she's not--rich, tailored to precision, impossible to read--and before long Anna is hooked, desperate to hold his attention, and determined to ignore the warning signs that this might be a toxic relationship. As Anna shuttles from grueling rehearsals to brutal auditions, she finds herself torn between two conflicting desires: the drive to nurture her fledgling singing career, which requires her undivided attention, and the longing for human connection. When the stakes increase, and the roles she's playing--both on stage and off--begin to feel all-consuming, Anna must reckon with the fact that, in carefully performing what's expected of her as a woman, she risks losing sight of herself completely. Both exceedingly contemporary and classic, A Very Nice Girl reminds us that even once we have taken possession of our destinies we still have the power to set all we hold dear on fire.

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