Wreck

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the NYT bestselling author of WE ALL WANT IMPOSSIBLE THINGS and SANDWICH.

Rocky, Nick, Willa and Jamie. A normal loving, anxious, messy, relatable, family.

Rocky has her own her way of processing disasters: 1. This could happen to us. 2. This couldn’t happen to us. And then there’s a secret third column: ‘This could happen to us unless I am very careful/ superstitious/ grateful…’

So when a former classmate of Jamie’s dies in a seemingly random accident, Rocky becomes obsessed. She's also developed a niggling medical condition that won't go away. On the surface, she is still living her best life as the irreverent, funny, unpredictable beating heart of her family. Her father is his unique, adorable self; Willa is prone to bouts of existential angst whilst berating the fact that her mother has zero filter; Nick is steady, logical, sometimes infuriating.

But if accidents can happen – and they do – is it safe to love anyone?

Laugh out loud funny and deeply emotional, WRECK follows Rocky and her family through one rollercoaster year as they share the unpredictable, beautiful messiness of life.

'The kind of book that pulls up a chair, pours the wine, and dives deep... like spending hours with the friend who sees your mess and loves you more for it.' Alison Espach, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding People

'Gorgeously human, tender-hearted, and delightfully funny' Nussaibah Younis, bestselling author of Fundamentally

'A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.' Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

'Infectiously funny and surprisingly moving, Wreck reminds us that we are each, in our way, trying to make sense of the big things with some very small tools' Rachel Joyce, bestselling author of The Homemade God

© Catherine Newman 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

Beautiful, funny, wry, relatable and uplifting… I LOVE her work, it's so clever and comforting and the antidote to these times.
Marian Keyes
Wreck is the kind of book that pulls up a chair, pours the wine, and dives deep—equal parts hilarious, sharp, and achingly sincere. It’s like spending hours with the friend who sees your mess and loves you more for it. I didn’t just read it—I felt known by it. A luminous, laugh-out-loud triumph by Newman.
Alison Espach, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding People
I loved it! A gorgeously human, tender-hearted, and delightfully funny exploration of the anxieties that beset all of us, and the loving relationships and irrepressible joy that gets us through.
Nussaibah Younis, author of international bestseller Fundamentally
Another heart wrencher from the incomparable Catherine Newman. She writes about the minutiae of family, love and why we are here with such joy, humour and emotion it almost hurts. I laughed out loud along the way, then the final page had me in tears. Wrecked me!
Claire Daverley, author of Talking at Night
How comforting, how satisfying, and how delicious to be once again in the world of Rocky and her family where everyday life bangs against potential disaster and somehow muddles its way through. Infectiously funny and surprisingly moving, Wreck reminds us that we are each, in our way, trying to make sense of the big things with some very small tools - and that love in the end is the thing that saves us.
Rachel Joyce
Catherine Newman is the funniest and most tender hearted writer alive. I hope people are reading Wreck for years to come. Rocky and everyone in her universe shows as what humans can do and be when we're at our very best.
Daisy Buchanan, author of Insatiable
Endorsing a new Catherine Newman novel feels a bit like endorsing puppies or chocolate cake. It's a new Catherine Newman novel. Of course you want to read it. Wreck is a delight. .. Newman's prose is laugh-out-loud funny. It's also profound. I underlined so many passages in this treasure of a novel. I
J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times bestselling author of The Cliffs
Catherine Newman’s new novel is a rare thing: both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply attuned to the quiet devastations of illness, grief, and family life. In Rocky... Newman gives us a narrator whose fierce intelligence and generous heart make even the most ordinary moments shimmer with grace.
Meghan O'Rourke, New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Kingdom
Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines . . . . A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Catherine Newman has my heart . . . . Newman is my dream writer, and she channels the perfect cocktail of humanity into her characters, especially Rocky. Rocky is funny and dry and emotional and sometimes crazy and always loving, so loving, of her family, even as she struggles and panics. It’s a gift to get to be on the quest with her, and learn alongside her, about how to be alive, to be a person, to be good, to be worthy.
Lithub (Most Anticipated Books)

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