Soft Core

A Novel

De: Brittany Newell

Narrado por: Christine Lakin

A young woman’s madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell’s savage, tender Soft Core.

Ruth is lost. She’s living in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend Dino, a ketamine dealer with a lingerie habit, overdosing on television and regretting her master’s degree. When she starts dancing at a strip club, she becomes Baby Blue, seductress of crypto bros, outcasts, and old lovers alike. Plunged into this swirling underworld of beautiful women, fast cash, ungodly hours, and strangers’ secrets, Baby’s grip on reality begins to loosen. She is sure she can handle it—until one autumn morning when Dino disappears without a trace.

Thus begins a nocturnal quest for the one she still loves—through the misty hills of San Francisco; in dive bars and bus depots; at the BDSM dungeon where she takes a part-time gig. Along the way, she meets Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favors; a philosophizing suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, the beautiful and balletic new hire who reminds Baby of someone . . .

A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell’s Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

©2025 Brittany Newell (P)2025 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Soft Core is a beautiful fever dream, a slippery, captivating pleasure, a love story stuffed inside a wadded nylon stocking. It’s a novel that wants to get close to you. It wants to bite your neck; it’s the actual promise of a hickey. I can’t remember the last book I read that was even half as tender. I ate it up."—KRISTEN ARNETT, author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things

An honest and self-effacing portrait of a very troubled young woman.

Great narration- i enjoyed the mystery and pathos of Ruthy’s apparent coming of age. What I didn’t enjoy was the seemingly unredeemed cruelty toward the women of the story. I’d go so far as to suggest the author has some internalized mysogeny.

Left me confused and unfulfilled

Not even sure what to say. I had high hopes. I believe the lifestyles and characters portrayed in this novel are an important part of the landscape of our world. I wanted to learn more and fall in love with the characters— I couldn’t connect to them or make sense of the point of their stories.

enjoyable but repetitive

The premise is fun, and the descriptive language of the characters and character of San Francisco is engaging and true to the place and scene.
The narration was a bit grating for me, and this story may have been better executed as a more concise one.

Delicious, Savory Writing

I loved the writing for what I thought might be a tired subject. It does the Bay Area justice and really breathed light into the freaks of SF…a huge part of what I love about the bay. The arc of the story was open to interpretation in a way that was perfectly done and wrapped up nicely :)

Surprising!

Subject matter was treated with deep regard for the mix of trauma and delight it brings to people. I loved it! Exposed our cultural flaws while weaving a tale with empathy.

No point

Rambling loneliness with no concrete plot that goes on an on an and no ending

Insufferable protagonist

This wasn’t for me. The narrator was good and that is what kept me going.
I tried to have empathy for the main character but just wasn’t happening. The story meanders. It is more about loneliness, lack of love/confidence and always being desperate, petty and at times psychotic to find it through sex, revenge or doing whatever a man wants. The writing is subpar , overall everything about it except the narrator is mediocre. The underground SF scene is more boring & cliche than anything else.

Do Not Waste Your Time

I heard the author interviewed on NPR and I thought the book sounded interesting. Missing person story set against sex worker backdrop. That is not what this book is about. After finishing the book I am not sure there was ever an actual person missing. I was waiting for the end to be a dream or a nightmare or a fantasy. So the story isn't good and the writing isn't either. The book is riddled with awkward metaphors and they are everywhere, on every page and in every paragraph. I kept expecting a pay off for trudging through this listen but there isn't any. The performance is good but she couldn't save this dreadful book.