Parker Navarro’s buzzy debut novel should’ve been the book of the year. Instead, it was panned so harshly by notorious critic Selina Chan that it became the literary flop of the decade. Four years later, his new novel marks a second chance.

Selina’s carefully curated life is a result of the sacrifices she’s made in her pursuit for excellence. The last thing she wants to do is review Parker’s second book, but as the only Asian-American staffer at City Magazine, and with the iconic publication in financial trouble, she has no choice.

The review goes live: a devastating pan, again. That night, at an industry party, Parker and Selina erupt in a fight that’s secretly filmed—and it goes viral, driving Parker’s preorders and City’s subscription numbers.

As Parker and Selina are pitted against each other through pointed interviews and in-person clashes, their jabs about publishing, criticism, and who gets to lead an artist’s life give way to the realization that they might be more like-minded than they thought. While the feud carries on in public, a different conversation begins in private, especially after they're thrust together one snowy New York evening and begin an epistolary exchange that starts to feel a lot like flirting.

Witty and endlessly charming, Ríoghnach Robinson’s Bad Words is about the power of writing and the unexpected intimacy of being truly, wholeheartedly, read.