“There were so many new rules—all set by college students paying two hundred thousand dollars for their humanism.” Such is the complaint of Anna, the bewildered heroine of Lexi Freiman’s delightful cancel-culture satire “The Book of Ayn,” a thematic follow-up to the author’s debut, “Inappropriation” (2018). Anna, at the age of 39, has become persona non grata after the New York Times panned her comic novel about the opioid crisis, labeling her a classist and a narcissist. Her career seems finished until she’s contacted by a TV producer who thinks that cancellation is about to become the next cool thing. All Anna needs to do is lean into her “penchant for wrong ideas.” And what, she realizes, could be more contrarian than a revival of the philosophies of Ayn Rand?

The novel follows Anna to Los Angeles, where she lives among Gen Z TikTok stars while struggling with her TV treatment (which, inexplicably, becomes an animated series starring a cartoon sheep called Ayn Ram). She can never really decide whether she agrees with Rand’s objectivism or simply admires Rand’s audacity, particularly her ability to bed handsome young men even into her 60s. Anna’s story—which has a picaresque second act at a meditation commune on the island of Lesbos—is split between her efforts to scandalize the beautiful, vapid, clout-chasing Zoomers in her midst and her efforts to get them to sleep with her.