Pool House, Mary H.K. Choi
Pool House, Mary H.K. Choi
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Pool House
A Novel

Author: Mary H.K. Choi

Narrator: Joy Osmanski

Unabridged: 11 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/09/2026

Categories: Fiction, Women


Synopsis

AN AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK

"Narrator Joy Osmanski's voice, accents, and characterizations sweep listeners into this realistic and emotional story..." —Kirkus on Yolk

"A sharp, hilarious, unsparing mother-daughter story." —Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans

Bestselling young adult author Mary H.K. Choi debuts a brilliantly observed adult novel about mothers, daughters and the complexity of family set against the backdrop of Hollywood

Stevie cannot escape her mother. Abandoning college plans to work a dead-end job, her days are a purgatorial bore. Many dream of moving to L.A. and into the spotlight, but Stevie can’t wait to move away from it, and her mother’s orbit, to start over.

Moon is many things: an out-of-work actress, a recovering addict, whatever a mistress becomes when she’s widowed, and a mother. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband’s death, Moon struggles to process her grief. And the last thing she expects is for Stevie to leave her too.

Now, neither Stevie nor Moon can afford to quit each other. And their cost of living forces them into a glass-walled pool house in the backyard, while their home is rented out to pay the bills. But when Adam, Moon’s former TV son and Stevie’s forever crush, arrives for the funeral, the three are pulled into a messy orbit, moving back into the ‘Big House’ and play-acting a picture-perfect family even as tensions rise and relationships unravel.

Pool House is a course charted through the wilderness of motherhood, a story about the challenges of navigating class, fame, burgeoning sexuality, and grief as two women grapple with what it means to grow up and grow older in Hollywood.

"It’s time we recognize Mary H.K. Choi as an auteur." —Michelle Zauner, New York Times bestselling author of Crying in H Mart

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

About Mary H.K. Choi

Mary H.K. Choi is a New York Times bestselling author whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and Elle. Formerly, she was the culture correspondent for Vice News Tonight on HBO, a columnist at Wired and Allure, and a guest columnist for the New York Times Opinion desk, as well as an executive producer of the House of Style documentary on MTV. She was awarded the Katherine Min Fellowship at MacDowell and has also written comics for Marvel and DC. She is currently developing her books for film and TV. Follow her on all social media at @choitotheworld, as well as the choitotheworld Substack that covers mental health, culture, and technology.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alison on March 30, 2026

Stevie is the young adult daughter of an out of work actress, Moon, whose life is stalled as she works a fast food job and lives with her mom in the pool house of their beautiful home, which they now rent out through AirBNB because of Moon's poor financial decision. When Moon's long time love, affai......more

Goodreads review by Maddy on May 15, 2026

Brutally moving. If you need a good, messed-up, literary fiction family, this one's for you. 'Pool House' follows mother and daughter duo, Moon and Stevie, as they reconcile the death of their kind-of real husband and father, Mac. As Moon and Mac (and their kind-of real son Adam) were on a TV show to......more

Goodreads review by Aysia on May 10, 2026

2.5/5 stars rounded up. Oedipus would have a FIELD DAY with this one, holy cow. I can say that this was a book I don't think I like, but it was written really well. It was written so well that I was deeply uncomfortable basically the entire time I was listening to it, but that was probably the point......more

Goodreads review by Fiona on April 30, 2026

This is a book that takes you on quite a ride. Pool House is about relationships, primarily between a fading star and her daughter, also encompassing the tv family of the mother and how the fake and real family interweave together over time. I really enjoyed this book, especially the mother and daught......more


Quotes

Praise for Pool House

"Culturally incisive and relentlessly smart, Pool House is like Grey Gardens set against the tarnished glitz of the Hollywood C-list. It’s time we recognize Mary H.K. Choi as an auteur."
—Michelle Zauner, New York Times bestselling author of Crying in H Mart

"Pool House is a sharp, hilarious, unsparing mother-daughter story. Mary H.K. Choi speaks everything that normally goes unspoken, treating wealth, celebrity, even grief with the merciless yet affectionate point-of-view of a family member—ruthlessly ribbing one moment, and shattering your heart in the next. This book, like its author, is something very special."
—Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans

"Choi's prose is unflinching, dynamic, effervescent, and expansive—Pool House is a magnum opus and a vibe. With delight and melancholy, Choi stretches questions of care, family, and becoming to their outer limits—the novel is a gem of honesty and clarity amidst the messiness of being a person among other people. Choi continues to astound and Pool House is a wonder."
—Bryan Washington, author of Palaver

"Smart and stylish, Pool House is a fast-moving story of grief, fame, and the mess and meaning of family, told with Choi’s trademark wit and insight."
—Lisa Ko, award-winning author of Memory Piece

"Mary H.K. Choi’s Pool House is a deep full-bodied dive into joy. Her clarity, precision, and deep understanding [of the bond] between mothers and daughters [will] leave you underlining whole paragraphs with a trembling hand and calling your best friend to read them aloud. What a sparkling, astonishing novel!"
—Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk

"Choi offers an evocative study of Hollywood in all its seediness and self-importance...An impressive portrait of an ephemeral and savage world."
Kirkus (starred review)

"This gimlet-eyed family drama has plenty of bite."
Publisher's Weekly