Dated (A Novel)

“Leah Abrams grapples with how to live, work, and fall in love morally in a time of global upheaval. Moving, smart, and completely winning.”—Erin Somers, author of The Ten Year Affair

"A modern comic Jewish voice. Dated is a rollicking literary sitcom and generous family saga, beautiful, hilarious, and piercing."—Grace Byron, author of Herculine

“Funny, prescient, and deliciously current, Dated is a careful examination of morality and personal responsibility in an era of global calamity. A fabulous debut.”—Ruben Reyes Jr., author of Archive of Unknown Universes

A wickedly funny, defiantly poignant debut novel about a young progressive political staffer whose life is upended when her well-meaning but highly opinionated grandmother secretly impersonates her on JDate.

A childhood of Obama-era liberal idealism has led Sophie to a career in New York City politics, ready to follow the new mayor into the deepest pits of City Hall and to write for him the kinds of speeches that could bring thousands to their feet, roaring with approval and hope as a new era dawns. (And until then, at least, she would write the perfect tweets). But when the mayor takes a hard rightwing turn on rapidly escalating global conflicts, Sophie’s crisis of conscience snowballs; it’s already hard enough avoiding political conversations with her moderate parents, or shouting matches with her conservative grandmother, Irene, who has a deeply entrenched habit of dividing the world into things that are good for the Jews or bad for the Jews. And when Zaid, the most beautiful guy Sophie has ever seen, literally collides with her on his way to a protest against her boss, Sophie’s job begins to feel truly untenable.

Meanwhile, Irene—still trying to get a handle on widowhood, iPhones, and grandchildren who just don’t seem to want to accept how the world works—is determined to see Sophie nicely partnered up before she dies. So when she sets up a Jdate profile on Sophie’s behalf, she figures: why bother Sophie with it, when Irene can just start picking Sophie's perfect matches herself?

Sophie struggles with her job, her family, and her secret budding relationship with Zaid for months, all while Irene cheerfully impersonates her online—until all kinds of family secrets spills out at her brother Noah’s bar mitzvah, and the Gottsagens learn that even a new world order won’t necessarily fix the family.