Published in 2025
333 pages
8 hours and 48 minutes
Liza Monroy lives in Santa Cruz, California. The Distractions is her fourth book. She is the daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, spent her high school years attending an international school in Mexico City. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Newsweek, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Jane, and other publications, and she was recently awarded a residency by the Kerouac Project of Orlando.
What is this book about?
Mischa Osborn spends her days as a ProWatcher—keeping distracted people on task and lonely ones accompanied—from her Brooklyn Megabuilding, while eating PetriMeat Steax and working out with her favorite personal trainer, a straight-talking algorithm named Tory.
Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance realspace encounter with a HighlightReel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense realspace connection.
Mischa takes to relentlessly watching Nic onReel. As Mischa’s ReelWatching spirals into an all-consuming obsession, and even realspace stalking, Mischa takes increasingly desperate measures to be seen and valued, sucking others into her vortex of obsession until she completely loses control.
Meanwhile, someone is equally obsessed with Mischa, tracking her every move and perhaps even influencing her choices.
A tale of how technology enables obsession, envy, and unrelenting comparison, told through an eccentric cast of interconnected characters, The Distractions invites us to reflect on who we are watching, and why.
