Maybe my main character will slowly lose their mind too. Novels usually need an abandoned woman going crazy in them. It's gonna be, like, a sad girl novel.

An Australian expat in Berlin, Kim is jobless, rootless, and - as she's slowly discovering - somewhat useless.

That is until a chance encounter with Matthew, a hotshot New York literary agent, gives Kim the direction she's been craving. This year she will:

* Finally write her novel

* Decide what said novel is actually about

* Romantically pin down the increasingly flighty Matthew

* Be less jealous of best friend Bel's baby

* Convince her therapist that the amount of artichokes she eats doesn't classify as an eating disorder

* Stay sane in the process of achieving the above

Because Kim's story will not become a sad girl novel.

Definitely not.

'While Kimberley Mueller spends a lot of time wondering whether she's talented, Finkemeyer need have no such doubts. Finkemeyer's narrator - with her gift for both self-delusion and self-awareness - is a stroke of genius. Sad Girl Novel achieves all we can ask of contemporary fiction: it mocks and sympathises in equal measure. I closed it feeling better able to laugh at myself.' Diana Reid, author of Love & Virtue