
A Gorgeous Excitement
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Rebecca Lowman
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By:
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Cynthia Weiner
One young woman’s summer of infinite possibility takes a turn she never saw coming in “this 1980s coming-of-age tale [that’s] chillingly compelling. Get ready to be transported.”—People (Best Books of the Month)
AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NEW THRILLER • A TOWN & COUNTRY AND CRIMEREADS MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK
“I haven’t felt this kind of excitement reading a story set in the ’80s since I first discovered Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz, and Bret Easton Ellis.”—Margarita Montimore, bestselling author of Oona Out of Order
There are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible—when her mother isn’t lying in bed for days, she’s lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly wrong, Nina is the talk of Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates. It doesn’t help that she’s Jewish, an outsider among the blue-eyed blondes who populate this rarified world. She can fit in, kind of, with enough alcohol and prescription drugs stolen from her parents’ medicine cabinet.
Flanagan’s is where she pines for the handsome, preppy, and charismatic Gardner Reed. Every girl wants to sleep with him and every guy wants to be him. After she’s introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges headlong into her pursuit of Gardner, oblivious to the warning signs. When a new medication seemingly frees her mother from darkness, and Nina and Gardner grow closer, it seems like Nina might finally get what she wants. But at what cost?
Freud called cocaine “a gorgeous excitement,” but a gorgeous excitement for the wrong guy can be lethal.
©2025 Cynthia Weiner (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
“The title of this assured début novel is taken from Freud’s description of cocaine’s effects. That drug, combined with prescription medications, sex, and alcohol, fuels the narrative, which is closely modelled on the real-life death of a Manhattan teen-ager in 1986—the so-called Preppy Murder case.”—The New Yorker
“A Gorgeous Excitement is a thrilling coming-of-age narrative set in 1980s Manhattan, featuring twists of humor, vulnerability and, of course, excitement . . . brimming with beautiful prose and suspense.”—Shelf Awareness
“Informed by the author’s real-life acquaintance with ‘Preppy Killer’ Robert Chambers, this 1980s coming-of-age tale is chillingly compelling.”—People
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Night Club Scene
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Incredible in every way.
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Felt it needed more editing and maturity
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SOOO good.
Juicy, but wise, but touching too
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It was long and drawn out, could have made it much shorter.
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Slightly monotonous
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