Something Bad is Going to Happen

Jessie Stephens is a star — Lech Blaine

Refreshingly honest, scarily funny and absurdly wise — Hayley Scrivenor

Adella is facing the dawn of a new year and the end of her twenties — and she's in a psychiatric unit recovering from a mental breakdown. A decade earlier, her life held such promise; she had every option in her hand. How did it come to this?

As we go back and walk with Adella through her twenties, she searches for her grand purpose through love, career and travel. At her side through the tumultuous highs and lows is her best friend, Jake, facing his own challenges and opportunities. They both know the future must have something better to offer — but why does it also always feel, in the bottom of their stomachs, as though something bad is going to happen?

Raw and revelatory, Something Bad is Going to Happen is a heart-stopping work from one of Australia's most exciting writers. Dealing with the weight young women bear through pressure, anxiety, rejection, this is a generation-defining novel — wise, vital, deeply compelling.

Praise for Something Bad is Going to Happen:

I'm in awe of Jessie Stephens. She has managed to get down something important about the way we live now. — Hayley Scrivenor

This is, at once, a breathless story you can't stop reading and a character study as shocking as it is universal. If you don't glimpse yourself in it for even a second, you were reading with your eyes closed. — Sally Hepworth