Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It: A Novel

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Meet Phoebe Berman: despite being a hopeless romantic, she’s about to be a thirty-year-old virgin. With one month before her milestone birthday, she’s determined to finally lose it . . . if her own anxiety doesn’t slow her down. The can’t-miss debut novel from podcaster and comedian Brooke Averick.

“I laughed (a lot), I cried (more than expected), I swooned (the perfect amount), and I looked into the metaphorical camera, wondering if this book was actually about me.”—Lyla Sage, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Soul Searching and the Rebel Blue Ranch series

Is it possible to find true love when going on a date makes you want to throw up?

Phoebe Berman fears the one thing she wants the most: love. Thanks to an extremely unfortunate first kiss attempt, crippling intimacy anxiety has plagued her since she was a teen.

Phoebe has so much going for her: a dream teaching job, a supportive and hilarious group of best friends, and all the romance novels a girl could want at her fingertips—but she can’t help but beat herself up over the one thing she can’t quite seem to figure out. Determined to change this, she drafts up the ultimate “Guide to Losing My Virginity” checklist with the hope of finally getting laid.

Suddenly, she goes from a relatively boring (basically non-existent) dating life to juggling three romantic prospects at once. There’s the gorgeous new fourth grade teacher at her school, a former high school classmate that resurfaces through Words with Friends, and there will always be her roommate, who might just be the best friends-to-lovers situation of her dreams.

Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It is a brutally honest and completely relatable story for anyone who’s ever felt stuck between coming of age and coming apart.

Brooke Averick is best known for her podcast, Brooke and Connor Make a Podcast, where she speaks candidly and humorously about her struggles with OCD, anxiety, and depression, as well as her latest celebrity crushes, all while trying to convince her co-host to appreciate the magic of musical theatre. She’s amassed a social media following of over 1.5M across numerous platforms. She studied Early Childhood Education at Boston University, and currently lives in Los Angeles with her two cats, Jonathan and Robert. Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It is her first novel.

"Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It" by Brooke Averick is a delightfully tender, laugh-out-loud funny, and brutally honest exploration of love, anxiety, and the messy reality of coming of age when you are already approaching thirty. The novel introduces readers to its unforgettable protagonist, Phoebe Berman, a woman who loves love more than anything else in the world, yet is fundamentally terrified of it. Phoebe is a successful and dedicated elementary school teacher who seemingly has her life perfectly put together. She is surrounded by a deeply supportive and hilarious group of best friends, and she spends her free time devouring romance novels, thoroughly well-versed in every romantic trope imaginable. However, there is one glaring secret that she struggles to reconcile with her otherwise fulfilling life: her thirtieth birthday is exactly one month away, and she is still a virgin.

The root of Phoebe’s lack of romantic experience is not a lack of desire, but rather a crippling case of intimacy anxiety that has haunted her ever since a disastrous first kiss attempt during her teenage years. For Phoebe, the mere prospect of going on a date or engaging in physical intimacy does not just yield typical butterflies; it triggers intense physiological responses, ranging from cold sweats and stomachaches to full-blown panic attacks and even projectile vomiting. She is trapped in a frustrating paradox of desperately craving the kind of whirlwind romance she reads about in her books, while simultaneously being entirely paralyzed by the prospect of actively participating in one. As her milestone thirtieth birthday looms, the weight of her lack of experience becomes too heavy to bear, and Phoebe decides she has finally had enough of letting her fears dictate her life.

Determined to take control of her romantic destiny, Phoebe approaches her predicament with a uniquely organized, type-A solution: she drafts the ultimate “Guide to Losing My Virginity in 30 Days” checklist. This checklist is heavily inspired by the romance novels she cherishes, filled with actionable, sometimes ridiculous items like redownloading dating apps, finding a cute guy on a plane to help with her luggage, and intentionally rear-ending a suitable target's car just to get his phone number. The checklist serves as a hilarious but deeply vulnerable mechanism for Phoebe to force herself out of her comfort zone. What starts as a solitary, somewhat clinical quest to simply get laid before she turns thirty quickly snowballs into a chaotic and complicated romantic web that she never saw coming.

Almost overnight, Phoebe’s dating life goes from practically non-existent to overwhelmingly abundant as she suddenly finds herself juggling three very distinct romantic prospects. First, there is Finn, the gorgeous, charming new fourth-grade teacher at her school who brings an immediate spark of excitement and workplace tension to her everyday life. Then there is Matthew, a former high school classmate who unexpectedly resurfaces through a game of Words with Friends, blossoming into a surprisingly deep and emotionally resonant long-distance texting pen pal. Finally, and perhaps most complicated of all, there is Jonathan, her longtime best friend and current roommate. Jonathan represents the ultimate friends-to-lovers situation of her dreams, offering a foundation of deep trust, unconditional support, and a simmering, unspoken tension that complicates every aspect of their shared domestic life.

As Phoebe attempts to navigate this unexpected love square, the narrative delves much deeper than a standard romantic comedy plot. Averick uses Phoebe’s romantic escapades as a lens through which to explore the very real and often debilitating nature of severe anxiety and mental health struggles. The novel does not shy away from the messy realities of Phoebe’s panic; instead, it treats her mental health with immense compassion, acknowledging that her fears are not merely quirky character traits but genuine hurdles that require courage and self-acceptance to overcome. It is a story that validates the experiences of overthinkers, anxious romantics, and anyone who has ever felt like they are lagging behind their peers in the milestones of adulthood.

Ultimately, the novel is about much more than just a quest to lose one's virginity. It is a heartfelt tribute to the enduring power of female friendship, the necessity of giving yourself grace, and the realization that true intimacy requires vulnerability that cannot be found on a checklist. As Phoebe stumbles her way toward her thirtieth birthday, she is forced to confront the root of her anxieties and recognize that finding love is not about being a perfectly composed romance heroine, but rather about learning to want things honestly, messily, and entirely on her own terms. Averick delivers a debut that is both an homage to classic rom-coms and a remarkably fresh, emotionally astute update to the genre, ensuring that readers will be rooting for Phoebe’s self-discovery long after the final page.