Quotes
One of:
The New Yorker's "Best Books of the Year So Far"
Lit Hub's "Ultimate Summer Reading List" and "Most Anticipated Books of 2025"
Vox's "Summer Reading Picks"
AARP's "35 Summer Books to Add to Your 2025 Reading List"
The New Statesman's "Best Summer Reads 2025"
Praise for A New New Me:
“[Oyeyemi] imbues her books with wit, delight and an endearing matter-of-factness in the face of the world’s absurdity and cruelty. This complex harmony is essential to Oyeyemi’s success. . . . Enchanting. . . . [with] a climax worthy of Lewis Carroll. . . . A New New Me is in conversation with, among others, the great 20th-century satirists of the Czech Republic and Poland. . . . Oyeyemi ultimately asks the (now sadly provocative) question: Aren’t we all actually in the same boat?”
—The New York Times
“[Oyeyemi is] a writer whose style is equal parts mischievous, moony, and tart. . . . If the self-help cant of the title seems to glitch or stutter, the book’s contents shimmer with the same strangeness. . . . Oyeyemi’s prose is propelled by a subtle animism; her sentences sometimes seem to contain the whole book in miniature. . . . If Butler’s The New Me lampooned the self-improvement industry, Oyeyemi's A New New Me pushes the logic of perpetual upgrades to the point that self-help is indistinguishable from self-erasure. . . . Some novels insist on being read as prescriptions for living; Oyeyemi’s simply depicts a process: one splinter of a soul briefly gains control of a body, and goes out to be engulfed by the world.”
—The New Yorker
“Adventurous readers will enjoy following its twisty path.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A surrealist romp. . . . Oyeyemi offers us an existential farce that wrestles with what it means to reconcile all the pieces of yourself, especially when they're in constant disagreement about how best to live a life.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A wild ride. . . . [A New New Me] belongs with Oyeyemi’s more recent works: playful, self-aware tales that revel in the hijinks of storytelling. . . . A comedy about the masks we wear, if you will, as well as an existential mystery. . . . The denouement, when it finally comes, is so gloriously absurd, you can't help but salute Oyeyemi's knack for artful nonsense. She is a gleefully unapologetic trickster;whether you adore this novel or chuck it across the room may come down to how much mischief for the sake of mischief you can handle. My bet is you’ll finish it, as I did, feeling bemused but also perversely entertained, and grateful for the ride.”
—The Guardian (UK), Book of the Day
“[Oyeyemi] as also been increasingly interested in deconstructing the nature of fiction itself, probing and prodding at the ways a narrative can be manipulated to interrogate the uncertainty and changeability of life itself. A New New Me extends this practice into the area of human consciousness. . . . Indeed, it is impossible to find a suitable comparison for the kind of fiction Oyeyemi produces. Perhaps, in the end, her novels are like the seven Kingas: each comparable only to itself.”
—The Globe and Mail
"Helen Oyeyemi occupies a similar space as Wes Anderson in my creative consciousness. . . . It’s bringing to mind Shirley Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest, except weirder."
—Literary Hub
“Oyeyemi continues to sound and write like nobody else. . . . Helen Oyeyemi’s prose feels freshly squeezed, zesty and stimulating, while her reader awaits a plot line to emerge like a Magic Eye puzzle. She is a skilful writer in a way that seems ever more rare, lexically precise, grammatically exact.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“Readers familiar with Oyeyemi’s work know to expect a surrealist adventure with stories within stories, matryoshka-doll-style, and fans of her complex tales will find much to enjoy in this dazzling novel that cleverly explores the many different selves that make up one woman navigating modern life.”
—Booklist
“Oyeyemi is such a confident writer, her details always specific and alive, that you know you’re in good hands even if you’re not entirely sure what material those hands are made of, where they’re taking you, or how much they’ll jiggle and jostle you along the way . . . A New New Me is thoroughly enjoyable and is very likely to reward repeat readings. I’m off to start it over again myself.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Wildly imaginative.”
—AARP
“Dizzyingly funny. . . . The story’s crowning jewel is the author’s ability to create seven unique voices belonging to one individual.”
―The New Statesman (UK)
“Helen Oyeyemi is one of the most imaginative writers around, and her latest—A New New Me—might be her best yet. . . . It’s fast-paced, funny, a bit dark and totally unique. . . . Absolutely worth the ride.”
―Press Association
“A brilliantly fun set-up. . . . In a sense it becomes a whodunnit as told through a kaleidoscope. . . . There is hardly a sentence here that won’t make you smile.”
―The Observer (UK)
“Screams ‘commercial break out’. . . . An audacious, incisive and very funny novel about self knowledge in today’s tech mediated age.”
―Daily Mail (UK)
“Helen Oyeyemi is a brilliant and deeply imaginative writer, so it is no surprise that her latest offering A New New Me is an intellectually provocative story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. In her innovative new novel, Oyeyemi introduces us to Kinga, a woman who has a different personality for every day of the week. . . . A masterful storyteller, Oyeyemi takes us on a wild ride as Kinga. . . . tries to keep her many lives from exploding. A New New Me is a clever and original story that makes you think about how one's identity is shaped and whether it can be controlled. A must-read.”
—NPR
“In A New New Me, Helen Oyeyemi ramps up her surrealistic wit to tell the story of a woman, Kinga, with a different identity for each day of the week — a funny but also weirdly apt way a lot of us seem to be living life in these technologically mediated times."
—The Boston Globe
“Like much of Oyeyemi’s work, [A New New Me] is a weird tale, a fractured fairy story, a mind-messing postmodern joke. . . . Whimsical. . . . There are always Oyeyemi’s sharp insights, her anarchic energy, her sheer glee.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
“A short and sweet speculative literary fiction, a punchy story about a woman who splits herself seven ways to get through the week.”
―USA TODAY
“Dizzyingly smart.”
―iNews
Praise for Helen Oyeyemi:
“Every Oyeyemi novel should be an Event. There ought to be parties with strange, nigh-incomprehensible themes and chaotic treats that inspire people to unlikely conversations. She is a national treasure in at least three or four nations. And no, her books aren’t strictly speculative...They’re not strictly anything, which is part of what makes them so wonderful."
—Reactor Magazine
