Introduction
Published in August 2026 by Josh Silver, Fruit Fly was an instant best-seller. Readers fell in love with the witty prose and its painfully accurate depiction of abuse and addiction.
A Summary
Mallory is a best-selling author, but after seven years of horrible writer’s block, her fame has fizzled away and she finds herself left with the fear of irrelevancy.
Leo is an addict without a home, living under bridges and doing whatever he needs to do to survive. He only hopes he can score enough drugs to forget all of the pain.
When these two meet, lightning strikes and Mallory finds the inspiration she needs to write the best book the world has seen, but she cannot let Leo find out her true motivations for helping him. But no secret can remain hidden, and Mallory must find out how far she will go to get what she wants.
Writing Style
There’s a surprising amount of humor in this book, smushed in between all of the suspense and internal monologues. This does make it easy to read and fast-paced, but I would recommend taking your time with it. There are two POV’s that are both in first person.
My Thoughts
This book left me in awe of how raw it is. Dark topics like addiction, abuse, and mental health are notoriously difficult to get right, but Fruit Fly managed to pack itself with these issues in a real and compelling way.
For reference as I write about this book – I did an immersive read where I listened to the audiobook and read it at the same time, so there will be discussions of both aspects.
It has been awhile since I read a book that felt extremely real for me, but these characters were built incredibly. Both Mallory and Leo were characters you wanted to root for, despite the horrible things they did and their raging flaws. In my opinion, there’s a lot of nuance with Mallory’s character that gets left undiscussed due to the severity of Leo’s situation. It’s undeniable that Mallory is a self-serving person, who used Leo to get what she wanted. But it does beg the question of how far people are willing to go to survive and how being in an abusive relationship warps the perception of the world around you. When I started reading this, I felt sure that I was going to detest Mallory, but by the end, there were so many complexities around her that I had to admit I had empathy for her despite her horrific acts. Leo’s character is what hit the hardest for me, because it reminded me of where I grew up, with addicts on every street simply trying to get by. His queer identity also added another layer of complexity within the novel and brought yet another difficult topic into the story. I read a lot of books that have queer characters, but feel like they are marketed towards heterosexual individuals, but this absolutely stands out as something unique. Often, with these types of topics, I find authors are unwilling to make them as dark and messy as they can truly be. Fruit Fly did not shy away from that in the slightest.
The audiobook also added another layer of suspense, leaving me feeling constantly on edge about what was going to happen next. There was not a second of peace while I was listening; I was constantly worrying about Mallory and Leo respectively. The voice actors truly did an amazing job.
The scene that cemented this book in my mind was when Leo found out the ending of the book. It feels painfully human to want to see a version of yourself succeed, and when you realize that another doesn’t have hope in you, it destroys a part of you as well.
The only reason that this isn’t a five star for me is because of Ronin’s character. Every other character felt real, but he just grated on me slightly in an unintended way. He was portrayed as the classic ‘emotionally-abusive’ husband that controlled Mallory, but I wanted more. In every other aspect, there are nuances and intricacies, and I wanted that within their relationship too.
Trigger Warnings
Please note this is a non-comprehensive list and there may be triggers in this book not explicitly stated here.
- Domestic Abuse
- Addiction
- Rape
- Mental Illness
- Suicidal Thoughts
- Bodily Fluids such as blood and vomit
Recommendation
I cannot recommend this enough. The audiobook was also top-tier so if you can — do an immersive read!
