Second Life

One of TIME Magazine's Most Anticipated Books of 2025. One of LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025. 'Unexpected, intellectually rigorous, funny, beautiful' Claire Dederer, author of Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma 'What a book! Has the lyricism and intelligence of a literary masterpiece, and the urgency of a thriller' Marianne Levy, author of Don't Forget to Scream 'So interesting, astute and beautifully crafted. I loved it' Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence In the summer of 2020, when Amanda Hess was pregnant for the first time, a routine ultrasound screening detected a mysterious abnormality in her baby. Without hesitation, she reached for her phone, looking for answers online. But rather than allaying her anxieties, her search unleashed a destabilizing onslaught of data and technology, and she was vulnerable - more than ever - to conspiracy, myth, judgement, commerce and obsession. In , Hess tells her deeply personal story of a pregnancy that falls outside the feted category of 'normal...