#100 in Thriller
New out August 4, 2026
Fruit Fly
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Our view
“Fruit Fly” is a dark, sharply funny thriller about a novelist who decides another person’s life is her next book. Josh Silver follows Mallory Maddox, a fading literary star seven years into writer’s block, as she fastens onto Leo, a homeless addict whose story she believes is hers to tell. Some readers praise how well the characters are drawn. The question of how far Mallory will go keeps the tension high.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer’s block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she’ll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike—and fast. Enter Leo. He’s a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for. Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo’s story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it’s her story—she’s the one who wrote it, after all. But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story. A razor-sharp satirical thriller, Fruit Fly will appeal to fans of R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface and Yomi Adegoke’s The List.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 72 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 33% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Thriller average of 7.6. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 72 | 100% |
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