Hey, Zoey

by Sarah Crossan

Overview

In this “brilliant . . . and darkly funny” (Sarah Dunn) novel, Dolores O'Shea’s marriage collapsed when she discovers her husband’s AI sex doll in the garage—but after moving “Zoey” into the house, they become oddly bonded, opening the door to a lifetime of repressed feelings and memories.

43-year-old Dolores O'Shea is logical, organized, and prepared to handle whatever comes her way. She keeps up with her job and housework, takes care of her mentally declining mother, and remains close with her old friends and her younger sister who's moved to New York. Though her marriage with David, an anesthesiologist, isn't what is used to be, nothing can quite prepare her for Zoey, the $8,000 AI sex doll that David has secretly purchased and stuffed away in the garage. At first, Zoey sparks an uncharacteristically strong violence in Dolores, whose entire life is suddenly cast in doubt.

But then, Dolores and Zoey start to talk...and what surfaces runs deeper than Dolores could have ever expected, with consequences for all of the relationships in her life, especially her relationship to herself. Provocative, brilliant, and tender, Hey, Zoey is an electrifying new novel about the painful truths of modern-day connection and the complicated and unexpected forms that love can take in a lifetime. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316428606
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	06/25/2024
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Sarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London, New York and now lives in East Sussex. Her books for children and teenagers have won many prizes including the prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal, the CBI Book of the Year, the YA Book Prize, and the CLiPPA Poetry Award. Her first novel for adults, Here Is The Beehive, was published in 2020 to critical acclaim. Sarah’s novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

Editorial Reviews

04/15/2024

In Crossan’s offbeat latest (after Where the Heart Should Be), a middle-aged woman finds her husband’s AI sex doll in their garage. Unsure what to think, Dolores puts the doll back in its nylon bag and waits to confront her husband, David. Through fragmentary flashbacks to Dolores’s childhood, the reader gathers something painful happened when she was young. When Dolores eventually reveals to David that she knows about the doll, he informs her that its name is Zoey and promptly moves out (“I think I’d rather split up than have to talk about it,” he tells Dolores, leaving Zoey behind). Afterward, Dolores brings Zoey inside the house and replaces the sexy outfits David dressed her up in with more tasteful attire. Over the course of their conversations (once Zoey is charged, she listens to and remembers what Dolores tells her), Dolores is shocked at Zoey’s high level of intelligence and knowledge, and struck by how much users of the technology miss out on by treating them only as sex dolls. There are lighthearted moments, including movie nights with Zoey, and heavy ones, as Dolores’s connection to the doll eventually leads her to fill in the gaps in her childhood memories. Readers will enjoy this astute page-turner. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Crossan has imagined her AI responses so brilliantly it hurts—she plays a much more profound role in what is ultimately a moving, troubling, even heartbreaking book…[Hey, Zoey] firmly places her in a group with Sally Rooney, Caroline O’Donoghue, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, and Eimear McBride, millennial Irish women writers we love. Extremely easy to read and equally hard to forget.”

—Kirkus, Starred Review

"A funny, insightful tale of love and complicated families."—Marie Claire

"A love triangle, but with a twist."—The Guardian

"Highly inventive, astute and funny… A thought-provoking reflection on loneliness, love and the search for connection."—Observer

“Brilliant, provocative, and darkly funny, Sarah Crossan’s Hey, Zoey explores the impossibility of connection, and the things we hide from ourselves and the people we love.”—Sarah Dunn, author of THE ARRANGEMENT

"Funny/dark. Tender/tough. Uncanny/relatable. Hey, Zoey is a searing novel about true intimacy and the things humans will do to protect themselves from it. You’ve never read anything quite like it, and only Sarah Crossan could have written it."
 —Erin Kelly, author of The Poison Tree

"Examining how humanity can be found in unexpected places, one of our most inventive writers, Sarah Crossan, blends comedy, drama, and heartbreak in a novel that is as surprising as it is memorable."—John Boyne, author of The Heart's Invisible Furies

"Hey, Zoey is unique, refreshing and revelatory. Sarah Crossan excels at subtle subversion, marrying delicious dark wit with deep empathy to produce work that reads the zeitgeist perfectly. This stylish, provocative novel isn’t afraid to push the bruise!"—Helen Cullen, author of The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually

"This darkly funny modern love story had me gripped all the way from its compelling opening to its unexpectedly moving and worrying conclusion. Hey, Zoey offers a sharp and sometimes shocking exploration of relationships between friends, lovers and family. It’s intriguing, fresh, and satisfyingly complex; it makes you think, and it makes you feel."—Lesley Glaister, author of Little Egypt

"Hey, Zoey is a flight of the imagination mapping the twilight zone of broken love. Highly original, deeply moving, simultaneously delicate yet hard hitting, Crossan is elegantly devastating in her ability to evoke our tender, unguarded selves."—Claire Kilroy, author of Solider Sailor

From the Publisher

01/01/2024

Crossan (Here Is the Beehive) delivers a darkly comic, wholly original novel steeped in artificial intelligence—in this case, a sexbot named Zoey who communicates using AI. David and Dolores have been married for several years, but theirs is not a relationship of passion; they're more like two friends who happen to live together. Things come to a head when Dolores finds the sexbot in their garage. David refuses to discuss it when she confronts him, and he moves out, leaving Zoey behind. More frustrated than heartbroken, Dolores drags the doll into the house and sets up its app, making Zoey into her new roommate and confidante. To Zoey, Dolores relates her mother's dementia and confesses to missing her sister, who has recently moved away. As readers learn more about Dolores and her relationships, it is easy to understand her fascination with Zoey, who's a good listener and can hold her own in a conversation. The kinds of human-AI relationships that once seemed like science fiction become reality in Crossan's novel about modern-day connection. VERDICT In light of the proliferation of AI in all aspects of life, this is a timely read, sure to appeal to book groups that enjoy the work of Gary Shteyngart, Ottessa Moshfegh, or Dave Eggers.—Stacy Alesi

Library Journal

Sometimes you stumble across an audiobook with such a bizarre and intriguing performance that you want to devour it. Such is the case with Sarah Crossan's novel and her outstanding performance of it. Dolores divorces her husband after discovering he's been having an affair with an AI sex bot named Zoey, which she eventually keeps. At first, Dolores explores her hate for the robot, but gradually they enter a strange friendship, and Zoey becomes Dolores's confidant. Crossan delivers this story at a measured pace, moving smoothly through its wide range of subtle emotions. Her performance also suggests a hint of horror at the controversial topic of a genuine bond developing between an AI and a human. G.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

JULY 2024 - AudioFile

★ 2024-04-20
When London schoolteacher Dolores O’Shea finds her husband’s sex doll in the garage, a neatly organized life begins to crumble.

It takes a long time to realize this book is not really a comedy, because Crossan is a wonderfully funny writer. In the narrator’s first interaction with Tessa Winters, a troubled student whose problems escalate throughout the novel, we learn that Tessa’s cousin Neil, now in prison, buried his girlfriend alive in a big suitcase, but forgot to take off her Apple watch—so she called her mom from the grave. A few pages later, a childhood recollection: Dolores (nicknamed Doughy and, even more worrisomely, Dolly) and her sister, Jacinta, fought so hard over a doll that they pulled her head off, then played separately with the two parts until their mother reattached the head, saying, “You can forget about a hamster.” And while Zoey the sex doll does provide plenty of absurd humor—Crossan has imagined her AI responses so brilliantly it hurts—she plays a much more profound role in what is ultimately a moving, troubling, even heartbreaking book. After Dolores confronts her anesthesiologist (of course he is!) husband about the doll, and he responds by packing up and moving out without a word, Zoey becomes Dolores’ best friend. She buys her fancy size 4 espadrilles, gives her magazines to read and vegan cooking shows to watch, and struggles to leave her behind when she goes to visit her troubled sister in New York. Every part of this book is brilliantly constructed to reflect a different aspect of the central problem, which is numbness, and also something that happened in the girls’ childhood that takes the whole novel to emerge. Crossan is well known both here and across the Atlantic as a YA writer, and her second adult novel firmly places her in a group with Sally Rooney, Caroline O’Donoghue, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, and Eimear McBride, millennial Irish women writers we love.

Extremely easy to read and equally hard to forget.

Kirkus Reviews