Pity Party

Daisy Buchanan’s Pity Party might seem at first like just another fizzy millennial comedy — sharp jokes, peculiar retreats, and scenes that feel one gin-and-tonic away from complete collapse — but the novel tackles far more serious themes. Grief, mental health, and the struggle to live authentically take center stage.

At the heart of the story is Katherine Attwelll, a woman trying — and failing — to hold everything together. After the sudden death of her husband, Ben, she spirals into a work meltdown and is semi-voluntarily sent to a “wellness” retreat that turns out to be more chaotic than calming.

The narrative moves between Katherine’s present at the retreat and her past with Ben — a relationship she believed was perfect, until she experienced a miscarriage. In the aftermath, Ben began to withdraw emotionally, and Katherine slowly came to realize she is bisexual, falling in love with her colleague, Lou.

The novel handles Katherine’s bisexuality with gentleness, humor, and an understanding of how queerness is often buried under layers of good intentions, fear, and abandonment trauma from a strict upbringing. Katherine isn’t closeted in the traditional sense — she didn’t deliberately hide her queerness; she simply hadn’t recognized it in herself. She’s a progressive millennial woman who would never be biphobic to others, but she’s spent years gaslighting her own feelings. Her love for Lou — a connection that feels more like a soulmate than a crush — threatens to unravel the carefully curated life she’s built.

Katherine had been with Lou the night Ben died — just hours after Ben had asked for a divorce. The guilt she carries from that moment becomes a catalyst for her mental health crisis.

And yet, the novel never treats her bisexuality as a problem, or her love for Lou as a betrayal of Ben. The retreat doesn’t magically fix her, but it offers her the space to stop performing perfection, to start telling the truth, and to begin accepting who she is.

By the end of the story, Katherine isn’t “fixed” — because she was never broken. And her bisexuality is not a crisis to be solved. She’s simply a woman learning — late, and painfully — that she doesn’t have to be good to deserve a full life. Just honest. Just present. Just enough.

And that journey begins with accepting her bisexuality.

When it comes to bi representation, Pity Party is a powerful story for those struggling with self-acceptance or coming out later in life.