Acts of Desperation

By: Megan Nolan

Narrated by: Lauren Coe

A riveting, cathartic literary debut about love, addiction, and what it does to us.

Wouldn’t I do anything to reverse my loss, the absence of him?

In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic writer named Ciaran and falls, against her better judgment, completely in his power. After a brief, all-consuming romance he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her ...

Part breathless confession, part lucid critique, Acts of Desperation renders a consciousness split between rebellion and submission, between escaping degradation and eroticizing it, between loving and being lovable. With unsettling, electric precision, Nolan dissects one of life’s most elusive mysteries: Why do we want what we want, and how do we want it?

Heralding the arrival of a stunning new literary talent, Acts of Desperation interrogates the nature of fantasy, desire, and power, challenging us to reckon honestly with our own insatiability.

“A blistering anti-romance.” —Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X

"Hot as viscera." —The New Republic

Critic reviews

“Megan Nolan is a huge literary talent, and her first novel, Acts of Desperation, is a love story like no other. The writing is intense and honest, with a rare access to real life, but it is also reflective and full of insights, and with this combination the novel manages to separate the idea of love and the experience of it, and take the reader to the place where it comes into being.”
—KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD

“Megan Nolan is a huge literary talent, and her first novel, Acts of Desperation, is a love story like no other. The writing is intense and honest, with a rare access to real life, but it is also reflective and full of insights, and with this combination the novel manages to separate the idea of love and the experience of it, and take the reader to the place where it comes into being.”
—KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD

“Megan Nolan writes with piercing vulnerability and precision. Her debut novel, Acts of Desperation is a blistering anti-romance about the seductive destruction of trying to find self-worth in the gaze of another.”
—CATHERINE LACEY, author of PEW and THE ANSWERS

“Megan Nolan writes with piercing vulnerability and precision. Her debut novel, Acts of Desperation is a blistering anti-romance about the seductive destruction of trying to find self-worth in the gaze of another.”—CATHERINE LACEY, author of PEW and THE ANSWERS

"I devoured this book, my heart trilling with equal parts terror and exhilaration. It is an emotional thriller, a portrait of obsession—its pleasures and powerlessness, its inevitable corruption not only of integrity, but even selfhood. Nolan's prose is cool and liquid, her content perfectly scorching. I loved this taut and torturous ode to the parts of us that persist, even as we are wrecked by love."
—MELISSA FEBOS, author of ABANDON ME and WHIP SMART

“I devoured this book, my heart trilling with equal parts terror and exhilaration. It is an emotional thriller, a portrait of obsession—its pleasures and powerlessness, its inevitable corruption not only of integrity, but even selfhood. Nolan’s prose is cool and liquid, her content perfectly scorching. I loved this taut and torturous ode to the parts of us that persist, even as we are wrecked by love.”—MELISSA FEBOS, author of ABANDON ME and WHIP SMART

“Remarkable…This mesmerizes from the first page.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (Starred Review)

“Acts of Desperation charts the obsession of an unnamed narrator…with forensic focus and biting honesty.”
—THE OBSERVER, 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2021

Eerily Relatable

I have lived this voice, not in sequence necessarily, but in totality. It is uncanny, intense, and the culmination of the most tragic and desperate vignettes of my long life.

Heartbreakingly relatable

This book was devastating & at times relatable. The things you will do for love, to be seen, & to feel secure!

Beautiful, a great short and vivid read

This novel was a poignant vivid description of what happens when a young person with narcissistic, borderline fearful anxious tendencies becomes obsessed with an avoidant dismissive. The narrators complexities and harsh look at herself helps this novel by not allowing it to become too self-pitying and self-serving, although it still casts avoidant dismissives in a very negative light. Which in some respects, is as deserved as the narrator is deserving of our negative thoughts as well. They are the thoughts w have about ourselves. Reading this was a somewhat validating, somewhat unhappy, somewhat sad experience, but I’m happy I had it.

Pretty Good

This was a decent book, not great but not bad. It was well written but a bit morose. If you like happy endings and likable characters, this is not the book for you. Both of the main characters seemed to have personality disorders, mutually abusive and self-destructive in their own ways.

Raw & Real

I love this book & how relatable and honest the character is. The writing and narration was top tier. I look forward to more from this author