Nobody Asked for This by Georgia Toews is raw, biting, and unapologetically messy—in the best way possible. Written in sharp, fragmented vignettes, it reads like the inside of someone’s head at 3 a.m.: brutally honest, darkly funny, and painfully self-aware.

At its core, it’s a portrait of addiction, shame, hunger (literal and emotional), and a longing for connection that’s constantly at odds with self-destruction. The unnamed narrator is chaotic and flawed, but there’s something magnetic about her voice—like watching someone write their own obituary with a cigarette in one hand and a middle finger raised with the other.

Toews doesn’t offer tidy resolutions or redemptive arcs, but she captures something deeply human in the wreckage. If you like your books tender, biting, and more about vibe than plot, this one cuts deep. Think: Ottessa Moshfegh meets a hungover spiral at 24.

Cynical, vulnerable, hilarious, and kind of devastating.

Very pleased to read this book by a Canadian author. Great humour, and good exploration of grief, trauma and friendship. Perhaps I am not the target audience as it was difficult to relate to characters in their 20's. Dark comedy about trying to find your way in the world. Recommend.

In an effort to broaden my reading horizons, while also continuing to try to read as many Canadian titles as possible, I put Nobody Asked for This by Georgia Toews on my ever-expanding TBR. It’s more “literary” than I’d normally go for and even though I’m still not sure what I thought of it, I’ve been thinking about it on and off ever since I finished it in mid-April. And that says something about the quality of the writing and the impact of the story.

Here’s the book’s description:

Virginia is twenty-three and a stand-up comedian. In between working the rounds of Toronto’s small comedy club circuit and auditioning for paper towel commercials, she is tiptoeing around her depressed roommate and childhood friend, Haley, and having biweekly dinners with her bereaved stepdad, Dale, while trying to manage her own grief at the loss of her mother. She is also secretly working to get the green card that will be her ticket to L.A. and, she hopes, a glittering comedy career.

But when Dale tells her that he wants to sell their family home, and when a date with a fellow comic turns into a shattering encounter, she is forced to confront the limits of comedy—and friendship. Not every experience can be neatly packaged into a “bit,” and not every friendship is meant to last.

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Nobody Asked for This reaches into the messy depths of love, friendship, grief and trauma and, like all the best jokes, is utterly unpredictable.

So, how does one talk about a book that features a twentysomething stand-up comedian who gets raped by a fellow comic? That was a question I was asking myself while reading Toews’ novel because I had the great pleasure of interviewing her in April at a library event. The story is smart and funny but also oh so emotional. Not only does Virginia get sexually assaulted, but her friend (and roommate) is trying to manage a severe bout of depression that neither of them knows how to deal with. It’s a lot. I still don’t know for sure if I hit the right notes but the crowd seemed to have a good time and Toews was an absolute delight.

Reading this book felt like a different experience than I’ve had with other books and I think it came down to how Toews wrote dialogue. It was both extremely effective and yet sometimes frustrating. Weird place for a reader to be, let me tell you. Toews wrote exactly how people speak, sometimes stumbling and meandering while they get to their point. It can be hard to read at times but it was very authentic and completely suited the story.

One of the things in this book that really resonated with me was the relationship between Virginia and Haley. They’ve been best friends for years and now they’re roommates. They’re starting to realize - but can’t really accept - that maybe their friendship has run its course. Neither of them is giving the other what she needs and any previous harmony they may have had seems to have disappeared. It was such a powerful and relatable relationship, even if the particulars are different. I think many women have felt that same conflict with friendships over the course of their lives and Toews hit the feelings perfectly. I also really liked that she contrasted this friendship with the relationships Virginia has with other female comedians. That contrast really illustrated how problematic her friendship with Haley had become. It was so well done.

Oh, and in case you’re thinking, hey that name, Toews, sounds familiar…you’re right. It does. Georgia Toews is the daughter of CanLit mega-star, Miriam Toews (who wrote such books as Women Talking, which was adapted into an Oscar award winning movie).

Nobody Asked for This was a well-written and thought-provoking novel by Canadian author Georgia Toews. I’m really glad I had the chance to read it - even if I’m still sort of working out how I felt about it!

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, Doubleday Canada (Penguin Random House Canada), via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*

I really wanted to like this book. I tried reading the ARC, I tried listening to the audiobook (read by the author). I got about 22% into the book and I just could not keep going. Perhaps I’m not the demographic for the this novel. Or perhaps I should have kept listening. Hopefully this one finds its rightful audience.

As a fellow Canadian twenty something I really liked this book about a navigating life. There were some parts I was unsure about but, overall I did really like it. The writing kept me wanting more and wondering what was going to happen next. I did kind of hope we got more at the end. It felt almost incomplete.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for the advance copy of Nobody Asked For This.

I like the author's viewpoint of the carefree life in your 20s and the life of a comedian.
She set this up so that the main character Virginia, is unable to stay focused on her goals, family, friends, etc.

I really want to say good things about this, given that she goes through some significant trauma and I really think that her situation will speak to so many. In fact, I can even handle the slow burn with which her brain is dealing with her trauma. The rest of her life is not going well and she is unable to connect her incident with how she is treating her roommate. However, this was never dealt with.....she really does not find a resolution to her situation.
This leads to an ending which hurts the overall book, in my opinion.

Overall, the author, I think was looking for a following that would understand her coming of age novel, touch upon some significant issues and speak to a wide range of readers. Overall, it was a miss. Not terrible, just not as good as I had hoped.

Twenty-three-year-old comedian Virginia is juggling smaller hassles —like immigration woes, her father’s upcoming wedding, and her toxic friendship with her roommate—while still reckoning with massive grief after the death of her mother. Still, she is coping, if not thriving. That is, until she becomes the victim of a crime and reaches her breaking point. Now she’s spiraling while trying to convince the world—and herself—that she’s OK.

Despite its dark plot, certain scenes in this book are hilarious. The dialogue manages to perfectly encapsulate how real people talk while still being snappy and witty. But the realism in this book goes much deeper. Virginia’s response to trauma will be deeply familiar to anyone who’s dealt with similar struggles or watched a friend go through them. She unsuccessfully tries to minimize what happened to her and no response her best friend can give feels right. The best friend, meanwhile, is dealing with her own mental illness, and as a reader I both resented her for not being there for Virginia and empathized with her for not feeling strong enough to take on someone else’s problems. Whether they’re hurting or helping each other, the characters in this book felt messy in a way that rang true.

As a longtime Toronto resident, I loved seeing my city reflected in this book, and especially the way the author captured the experience of living in Toronto in your early twenties.

I do recommend looking up content warnings if you have any specific triggers, but otherwise I recommend this book without any hesitation. It is funny and painful and messy and deeply real in a way that I think will really resonate with lit fic readers.

I've been looking forward to this latest by a new to me Canadian author that follows a 20 something aspiring stand up comic as she navigates dating, grief, family dysfunction, friendships and more. Parts were funny, parts were heartbreaking but overall it just didn't have that something I was hoping for to elevate it beyond just an okay read. Good on audio and recommended for fans of authors like Dolly Alderton or Curtis Sittenfield and books like Really good, actually by Monica Heisey. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

I think I need to stop requesting books set in Toronto/Ontario. It's crazy to see emotional baggage actually impact things and it has almost exclusively been to reading books and I am so sorry for that.

Just not for me!

a refreshingly, realistic depiction of grief, depression and relationships. Virginia is a stand up comic in Toronto, navigating life following her mother’s passing and other traumatic events.

I enjoyed the honesty and candid, relevant nature of the writing and the character dialogue - it felt like you were having a conversation with friends instead of observing.

I found the relationships very complex and intriguing - her friend with depression, her mom’s former partner, her assailant. Virginia has very conflicted thoughts and feelings about the people she knows but it was great for the storytelling to provide a well rounded opinion so the reader could make their own judgements on each character.

While the book felt like a trauma dump, it was delivered in a deeply personal way like reading someone's diary. It made the charecters, experiences, feelings all the more real.

Thank you to netgalley for the arc 🫶🏻

DNF - There is certainly a readership for this book but I am not among them. I could not connect with the style in which this was written so I kept feeling unmotivated to go on. This felt at once very online & yet within the surface level banter, there was something more, the story just never explores it.

3 stars
I received this arc for an honest review!
I definitely overhyped myself for this book, however still enjoyed it for the most part.
The success in this work was the raw and real person feelings that made it relatable.
The struggles of being in your 20s and navigating grief in the comedy world is a unique take for a novel and she executed it very well.
I did find myself not so interested in the actually comedy shows which was a drag. The story itself had more comedy to it then the shows did.
Also, all the Canadian references gave me so much joy!

Absolutely loved this book. It’s was so heart wrenching and a great one if you love those messy women type fiction books.

This book was so good!!
I found the book to be very well written and very engaging. The author manages to talk about serious topics, while also making the book incredibly funny. I loved seeing the female friendship dynamics in this book, as well as the author’s take on grief and sexual assault. Bonus points for all of the Toronto references. As someone who was lived here her whole life, it pulled me into the novel even more. Please be sure to check out this book when it hits book shelves.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley who gave me an early ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

A very raw take on the difficulty of navigating your early 20's, with a dose of toxic friendship and living in a big city. Read the trigger warnings before proceeding. Thank you Penguin Random House Canada and Netgalley for the e-arc.

This book was not created equally among all of the many other literary fiction books floating around in the book sphere. What I originally expected to be a quip at the lives of young comedians in the internet era evolved into a complicated, devastating insight into coping in its many forms. The blows just do not stop coming for Virginia. If you want to know what it feels like to be a woman in your early 20s who just can’t catch a f***ing break, this is the closest you can get to tragedy without living it. Quick, sharp, and daring; I couldn’t have written this book if I tried. An absolute pleasure to read.

3.5 stars rounded to 4. Nobody Asked for This feels like eavesdropping on a casual Sunday meanderings with your closest friends. From the very beginning, this book was funny, charming, and extremely captivating. The voice felt so authentic—full of those natural "um's," "uh's," and "like's" that make it feel so realistic. At times, the book pushed boundaries and tackled taboo topics, and some moments really took me by surprise. The subject matter was occasionally difficult for me to digest, especially the depiction of sexual assault, which I hadn’t anticipated and would have appreciated a heads-up about. I also found V’s relationship with Haley hard to read, as it hit a little too close to home for me, making it a bit uncomfortable at times. That said, this is no fault of the author; it just felt a little too raw and relatable for me in some parts. Despite those moments, I really enjoyed the book overall. I’m especially excited to support Georgia Toews' writing, as she’s from my hometown, and I truly admire her work.

i loved this. cynical yet uplifting, and brutally honest in a way that makes you feel so seen. all of it just encompasses the early 20s so well. as a 23 year-old girl in a big city who went through an eerily similar situation with a life-long-friend-turned-roommate, maybe this just spoke to me directly. i really enjoyed the pace and virginia's voice, and had a great time immersing myself in the comedy scene

I really enjoyed this book, I couldn’t put it down. It was well written, funny, sad and more than anything it felt like such a genuine slice of life. It brought me back to living through my early twenties and the confusion and messiness that comes with being young.

As a Canadian, I enjoyed the setting of Toronto, it made a good backdrop to the story. The characters were well explored, flawed and believable in their description.

*Trigger warning* The sexual assault is hard to read but at the same time such an honest and relatable portrayal. Unfortunately, situations like that are familiar and probably resonate with many. Everything about this book just felt so true to reality. The description of growing out of friendships and the awkwardness and anger that can come with that was really well done.

Also the comedy bit about “cat men” is gold.

Can’t wait to read more from this author. 5⭐️

This was very well written. It felt like you were a part of it all. Funny at times, heartbreaking at times. A big ol trigger warning for sexual assault. The comedy show monologues were really not funny, though, and that took me out of it.
Either way, a good one. And by Miriam Toews daughter no less!

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for the arc.