Animal Instinct | amyshearnwrites

Animal Instinct

Named a Most Anticipated Book by Publisher's Marketplace, Oprah Daily LGBTQ Reads, Autostraddle, Write or Die, She Reads, Book Browse, Rainbow Crate, and more!

Highlighted as one of Vulture's Best Divorce Novels, Publisher's Weekly's Best Books About Dating, Goodreads' Raucous New Novels Featuring Very Messy Women, on Belletrist's STACKED, and in this AP News article on AI in contemporary fiction!

The world has stopped. But Rachel is just getting started…

Animal Instinct (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025) is darkly humorous and tantalizing pandemic-era portrait of sex, divorce, and midlife, about a Brooklynite who frankensteins the perfect lover.

It’s spring of 2020 and Rachel Bloomstein—mother of three, recent divorcée, and Brooklynite—is stuck inside. But her newly awakened sexual desire and lust for a new life refuse to be contained. Leaning on her best friend Lulu to show her the ropes, Rachel dips a toe in the online dating world, leading to park dates with younger men, flirtations with beautiful women, and actual, in-person sex. None of them, individually, are perfect . . . hence her rotation.

But what if one person could perfectly cater to all her emotional needs?
Driven by this possibility, Rachel creates Frankie, the AI chatbot she programs with all the good parts of dating in middle age . . . and some of the bad. But as Rachel plays with her fantasy to her heart’s content, she begins to realize she can’t reprogram her ex-husband, her children, her friends, or the roster of paramours that’s grown unwieldy. Perhaps real life has more in store for Rachel than she could ever program for herself.

SELECTED REVIEWS OF ANIMAL INSTINCT

“Delightful and hilarious . . . [Shearn] relates to the reader a series of wry and cutting observations about traditional marriage. . . . [and] transcends typical divorce novel . . . This scintillating story of reinvention will excite Shearn’s fans and win new ones.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Shearn’s inventive novel offers snappy dialogue that feels like eavesdropping on close friends, captures the scary early-pandemic days of isolation and digital connection, and ultimately celebrates the unpredictability of love.” —Booklist

"Horny from page one, the book will resonate with budding bisexuals, divorcées, and anyone faced with the ever-embarrassing task of trying to find themselves again."—The Cut

“The quippy and the no-holds-barred dialogue will remind you of gossiping with your best friends immediately after a first date. From celebrating women in mid-life embracing their sexual liberation to revealing (rather devastatingly) our co-dependency on technology to build emotional intimacy, Shearn’s novel is at once genuinely provocative, deeply heartwarming, and aware of its time. A refreshingly grown-up coming-of-age story.” —Oprah Daily (featured as a Best New Book of Spring)

“A recent divorcée and mother of three living in Brooklyn goes on a bisexual online dating and sex spree in the spring of 2020. She also creates an AI chatbot named Frankie in an attempt to program the middle aged dating fantasy of her dreams, a fantasy that naturally swiftly unravels as reality comes crashing back in.”—Autostraddle (featured on their list of Most Anticipated Queer Books for March)

"Animal Instinct is a sharp new exploration into sexuality, identity and the dynamism of human nature that traditional gender roles seem determined to stifle."—BookTrib (featured on A Reading List for Chappell Roan's "The Giver")

“A sexy novel...“ —Marie Claire (featured on their list "13 Books About Breakups That Will Remind You Not to Text Your Ex")

"Shearn crafts a bawdy, relatable narrative of sexual reawakening..."—New City

"This is a fun, sexy (with some hot scenes) novel that looks at one woman’s reawakening of her life and figuring out who she is and what she wants. There’s some lol moments and a good supporting cast of characters. This one is not to be missed."—Red Carpet Crash

"God, this book is a riot… It’s saucy and racy and incredibly real. I loved this book so much."—The Underlined

"Funny, lovable, charming, steamy, smart, feminist AF. With sentences that positively sparkle—a literary rom com that will make you fall head- over-orthopedic-chic-hipster-sandals in love with Amy Shearn."—Jessica Berger Gross, author of Estranged and Hazel Says No

"Amy Shearn’s novel celebrates the escalating weirdness of just being human in the 21st century."—Goodreads Editorial

"I loved it so much. From the opening pages, I was texting friends of mine, especially the ones who hated All Fours. This was the book they wanted!... hilariously funny, wildly insightful."—Nicola Kraus, author of the #1 bestseller The Nanny Diaries

"This evocative novel is a meditation on the need for human connection despite all the heartbreak relationships can cause. Shearn's luminous writing is especially trenchant when it comes to characters' struggles with gender roles and in the description of the general malaise, uncertainty and possibility of the early pandemic era. Ultimately this deliciously witty novel incisively explores themes of love, friendship, identity, female rage and what it means to truly be alive and fully inhabit your body as a woman in the world."—Chicago Public Library (featured as an April 2025 staff pick)

"A smart, sexually charged novel..."—The Film Stage

"A sexy, honest, and wild look at modern dating, mid-life, parenting, and how AI maybe isn’t all it’s cracked up to be."—Electric Literature

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ANIMAL INSTINCT

“Animal Instinct is almost mysteriously kind and hot and funny—like Grace Paley crossed with Miranda July, crossed with, like, Tina Fey. I loved it so much. A joyful pandemic sex novel that’s also a scathing critique of marriage? It’s the book I didn’t know I needed.” —Catherine Newman, New York Times bestselling author of Sandwich

“A juicy novel exploring what it means to start again at midlife, Animal Instinct is a refreshingly funny, devastatingly horny, and very human look at feminine desire and self-determination. A delicious read that’s like the greatest gab session with your best friend.” —Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch

“Shearn’s Animal Instinct is the whole wild ride: honest, smart, deep, and so very funny! I loved it.” —Sierra Greer, author of Annie Bot

“Incisive, hot, and heartbreaking, this sizzling novel is as much about the emotional and physical acrobatics women go through to survive straight marriages as it is a siren call for women of all persuasions to forge lives on their own terms. Animal Instinct is the manifesto for self-love and liberation that we need this year.” —Courtney Maum, author of I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You and The Year of the Horses

“Animal Instinct is sexy, bitingly funny, and wise. Although it’s set in the very specific, perfectly rendered world of Brooklyn during the pandemic, Shearn’s compulsively readable exploration of what it means to start over will resonate with women everywhere.” —Rowan Beaird, author of The Divorcées

“Animal Instinct is a laugh-out-loud funny, clear-eyed appraisal of desire reawakened after divorce, as well as a tender, unflinching look at a modern marriage, what’s expected of women, and what we expect of ourselves—and what it means to let go of all that.” —Kirsten Bakis, author of King Nyx