> Skip to content
Read an extract
Play sample
  • Published: 24 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529933635
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $22.99

Jaded





For fans of Queenie, The List and I May Destroy You, this razor sharp debut novel will capture your heart, make you laugh and sob, and will leave you asking yourself: what would you have done in Jade’s situation?

For fans of The List, Prima Facie, Queenie and I May Destroy You, discover the debut novel that readers describe as a timely, must-read novel.

‘Jade isn't even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name.'

Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be.

Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend.

Until one night, something terrible happens after a work event, and she starts to wonder if she really wants to be the person she’s become.

She’s learned to laugh when she’s felt like crying, opted to be invisible when she wanted to speak up and changed her identity to please people. But now Jade has to make a decision for herself. The question is, which is the right one?

This searing novel explores the strength we find in female friendship, the hope that lights up the dark moments and recovery that’s far from linear, and will leave you asking yourself: what would you have done in Jade’s situation?

  • Published: 24 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529933635
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Ela Lee

Ela Lee was born in 1995 and is a British-Korean-Turkish writer. She studied Law at the University of Oxford and went on to practise as a City lawyer. In 2021, during the global pandemic, Ela began work on her debut novel, JADED, which explores themes of consent, race, and identity. She lives in London, with her partner and their mini Aussie Shepherd.

Praise for Jaded

Wonderfully multi-faceted and emotionally compelling

Jessica George, author of MAAME

Jaded is a sharp, bold and compulsively readable story of power, money, sex and survival. Ela Lee writes with utter clarity and heartbreaking insight about the cost of survival in cut-throat corporate environments and about the gray space between complicity and compromise. Urgent and necessary, this is a book that will take up space in your heart and mind long after the last page

Cecilia Rabess, author of EVERYTHING’S FINE

Ela Lee has crafted a novel that's compulsive, rousing and raw. JADED is a dizzying debut about power, race, consent, entitlement, and so much more

Chloë Ashby, author of WET PAINT

JADED is a thoughtful, hard-hitting exploration of race, identity, and the rippling effects of sexual assault. Ela Lee writes with an urgency and clarity that will have you hooked until the last page.

Cecile Pin, author of WANDERING SOULS

Clever, insightful, poignant

A.J. West

Ela Lee is an electrifying new voice, and this is an ambitious gut-punch of a novel. Like I May Destroy You meets Industry, it’s a witty, nuanced and thought-provoking interrogation of attitudes towards race, power and consent

Bobby Palmer, author of ISAAC AND THE EGG

Brutal but sadly realistic, JADED is a clarion call against the resounding silence of corporate law which has gone untouched and unmoved by #metoo. Quietly devastating

Ella King, author of BAD FRUIT

A gripping read - in parts harrowing and uncomfortable, but also brilliantly empowering. And underneath it all, a love letter to female friendship. Highly recommended!

Emily Koch, author of WHAT JULY KNEW

A sensitive, nuanced and compelling exploration of trauma, race, identity and consent. Ela Lee is a writer to watch.

Mahi Cheshire

A raw, compulsive and nuanced novel about identity, race and consent

i

Moving

Cosmo

This raw, dark novel explores racism, class and sexism and you'll want to savour every word on every page

Refinery 29

One of 2024's hottest reads

Sunday Times

Authentic

Daily Mail

Ela Lee is a remarkable new voice in fiction. I tore through JADED – it made me laugh, cry and really bloody furious

Stacey Halls

Bold ... A tightly-wound, claustrophobic unravelling of one woman that is one of the year’s most thoughtful reads

Harper’s Bazaar

JADED is brilliant and funny and moving all at once. I loved how Ela used the assault to crack open all the faultlines in Jade’s life, with Kit and with her work and with her parents. Despite the heartbreak, such violence can also show us our own strength and beauty

Rosie Price

Jaded is a bold, important novel about privilege and power. It doesn’t shy away from hard truths. A wonderful thing, when fiction has the courage to leave the reader with questions, thoughts, and feelings, instead of giving simplified answers

Jenny Mustard

An extremely accomplished debut that covers a difficult topic, at times delicately, at times unflinchingly, and always accessible. We have either been this Jade or know someone like Jade, and the way Ela builds her narrative is expertly done

Poorna Bell

JADED is that rarest of things: a compelling page-turner that is also unafraid to challenge. With its nuanced and complex exploration of consent portrayed through the lens of gender, race and class, it is as painfully urgent as it is timeless

Wiz Wharton

Jaded is so nuanced, assured, and utterly devastating it’s hard to believe it’s Ela Lee’s debut. Lee fearlessly takes on the impossible, infuriating double standards women are held to in our society, and undeniable feminine rage simmers under every sentence of her expertly crafted prose

Layne Fargo, author of THE FAVOURITES

Discover more

Article
An interview with Ela Lee about her debut novel, Jaded

We caught up with debut author Ela Lee to learn about how she made time for writing while working full-time, her ‘big break’ into publishing and more.

penguin pop image
penguin pop image