Women: A Novella

by Chloé Caldwell

"A contemporary classic of queer women's writing." —Michelle Tea, author of Knocking Myself Up

The cult-classic novella that intimately explores one young writer’s whirlwind and whiplash affair as she falls deeply in love with a woman for the first time.

Sometimes I wonder what it is I could tell you about her for my job here to be done. I am looking for a short­cut. . . .But that would be asking too much from you. It wasn’t you who loved her.

A young writer moves from the country to the city and falls in love with another woman for the very first time. From the start, the relationship is doomed; Finn is nineteen years older, wears men’s clothes, has a cocky smirk of a smile . . . and a long-term girlfriend.

With startling clarity and breathtaking tenderness, Chloé Caldwell writes the story of a love in of nights spent drunkenly hurling a phone against a brick wall; of early mornings hungover in bed, curled up together; of emails and poems exchanged at breakneck speed. In Women, Caldwell lays bare the fierce obsession of addictive love, and asks the what, if anything, can who we love teach us about who we are?

In this beautiful, transcendent, bracingly sexy novella, Caldwell tells a lust-love story that will bring you to your knees. Capturing the feverish heartbreak of Sapphic romance, painting a stark picture of an identity in crisis, and illuminating the exploratory possibilities of queer life, Women brands the heart and sears the soul.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Romance, Lesbian, Feminism, Contemporary

162 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Chloé Caldwell is the author of the national bestseller, WOMEN (Harper Perennial, 2024).

Her book TRYING will be published by Graywolf Press on August 5th, 2025.

She is also the author of the essay collections I'll Tell You in Person, Legs Get Led Astray, and the memoir The Red Zone: A Love Story.

Chloe's work has been published in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, The Cut, Vogue, and many anthologies, including SLUTS, Without a Net, and Goodbye To All That.

Chloe teaches creative nonfiction online and hosts retreats and offers writing support at scrappyliterary.com.

Reviews

[Jay Gabler · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can you not love a book where, when the characters get mad at each other, they show it by blocking each other on Goodreads?

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 3 out of 5]

While love will always shake you, some loves will shatter you. Women, an intimate confessional of a novella charged with volatile vulnerability, concerns the latter. Told in a fragmentary fashion, Chloe Caldwell confides in the reader to chronicle the collision course of a first and feverish sapphic love affair caught in a tailspin of passion and toxic patterns of addiction. Hailed as a modern cult classic of lesbian fiction, Women is, at its heart, a devastating portrait of a coming-of-age in search of itself. Using a burning flame of desire as a torch to seek her identity in the dark, we are reminded that the passions that burn brightest and hottest burn out the fastest, leaving our narrator to smolder in the charred remains of her affair with an older woman. A bit repetitive and aimless for effect toward the end, the narrative reads familiar to the break-up breakdown rants we’ve all likely been told by–or ourselves told to–close friends over a night fueled by drug and drink. Caldwell’s raw and incisive prose, however, coupled with her ability to orchestrate emotion and empathetic introspection even in the narrator's worst moments keep the story from blowing itself out with its own rapid breath. Teasing autobiography and flowing from the depths of lovelorn distress, Women is a intense interrogation of identity and women’s sexuality caught in the throes of obsessive and destructive desire that, like the narrator, will leave you ‘bruised, exhausted, and fluttering back to earth.’

Women feels like a book that should be read in second-hand copies, passed between friends or lovers amalgamating annotations and underlines along with spine creases and folder corners. Which is likely how it became a modern cult classic over the past decade, originally published in 2014 and recently reissued in a 10 year anniversary edition complete with a new afterword by the author. In her reflections on the now-decade long legacy, she cites her fans who often tell stories of being passed a copy (or stealing it), of reading it as if its possession was a social subversion, a totem, a comfort, a companion. Sometimes the right book hits you in a time of need and I was rather touched to learn how frequently Women was that book for others. How its blunt and bold portray of women’s sexuality or queer desires was like an anthem in prose. Caldwell immerses the story in the pop culture of the day—also a hefty repertoire of book and film references—in a way that would have made it feel it were happening in real time upon its release and easily relatable to those amidst it. l10 years on it still holds up and though some of the pop culture references may feel dated, they also affix the novel in its time and place and our likely to produce a sense of nostalgia in those who are now coming to it for the first time. And while nostalgia may be an unrequited romance with the past, studies have suggested that nostalgia in a romance tends to make it stronger.

‘Trust me. I Hate myself more than you ever can.’

Not that the reflections on the affair with Finn, a librarian 19 years her senior, are nostalgia, per say, as anything wistful comes abraded with sadness and pain. While it is ultimately a muted hope in the end, the story arrives with a sense of desperation to talk it out in order to understand it herself. It begins at the end, with Finn now removed by a distance of miles as well as years where their only communication is the cycle of blocking and unblocking each other on facebook or goodreads (the latter gave me a laugh because that is such a wild and...well…familiar vibe). Caldwell–presumably the narrator–has arrived in the city fresh from kicking a drug addiction but soon finds herself caught in Finn’s waves and hopelessly obsessed with her. Finn, who her trans friend Nathan remarks ‘I cant tell if she’s incredibly cocky or incredibly tortured,’ is everything the narrator desires: she’s self assured, well put together, and sexually confident. As the novel progresses we see she represents to the narrator everything she’s not, even being uncertain of her own sexuality despite desiring to want and be wanted only by women. Through the course of Women the narrator is unmoored—a term she comes to obsess over—in her own sense of self and allows it to be steered by waves, and often tempests, of Finn’s temperaments. It should come as no surprise their companionship will be dashed upon such waves.

‘I always want to feel good and I never want to feel bad. Because of this, I’m experienced in substance abuse issues.’

The obsession for Finn has one major catch. Finn has a long-term girlfriend and doesn’t seem interested in leaving her even as the sexual encounters with the narrator become frequent. ‘Finn and I rarely talked about her girlfriend,’ she tells us, ‘instead, we allowed her to be a looming tempest around everything we did.’ Not only is she never named, a reminder she is thought of as something to be shamefully avoided the narrator tells us in one of the many moments the narrator directly engages with the craft of the story with the reader, but she even admits it was several drafts of the novel before she even included the girlfriend. Which screams shame and embarrassment far beyond the words on the page. She is even aware of her voracious desires for Finn as akin to her substance abuse problems, she just can’t help herself and always pushes into extreme emotions or behaviors. Which is never a good bedrock for any relationship with aims beyond making the bed rock.

‘The quick transitions between bliss and hell, between our fights and apologies, are so extreme, so jolting. It feels so different from the men I have dated, who refused to engage in this sort of drama. Finn seems to be able to stomach it. In retrospect, I think I may have been testing her, pushing her, trying to scare her away. Not knowing how to walk away on my own.’

With everything, the narrator moves with a recklessness as if in search of revelation, as if life is a room filled with jars and she must smash the right one to find it. She is drawn to this behavior in others too. A first date late in the story occurs with a young woman who’s life cycles between rehab and arrests encourages the narrator to steal a salad and later gives her a small bag of cocaine. I’ve referred to the rawness of this book already but seriously, this book has zero chill.

‘There is an undertone of sadness to the night. I say, I don’t understand why you’re here, it confuses me. She says she wanted to see me. She wanted to make sure I was okay. Do you want me to leave? No. Yes. No. Yes. Of course I want you to leave. Of course I don’t want you to leave.’

Any flame this out of control is likely to burn you. ‘This is damaged’ Finn admits and Caldwell excels at authentically capturing the hurricane of arguments, walking away but always coming back, toxic couples often do, prolonging the inevitable and only amassing more emotional scars in the process. It is a sign, however, that the narrator cannot exist without Finn to define her, identifying with a line she finds in a book about the tv series The L Word:

‘She was alone in battling the heartache, along with facing an overwhelming identity crisis, in a place that was not yet her home.’

I rather enjoyed how the narrator comes to books and quotes to help process their own life. ‘Books are like doctors and I am lucky to have unlimited access to them during this time. A perk of the library.’ As a fellow book lover I can’t help but enjoy their early cute stages texting each other quotes by writers like Rebecca Solnit, Adrienne Rich, Maggie Nelson, Mary Ruefle (its one of many aspects where Caldwell is seemingly placing her work amongst her own favorites like Kate Zambreno). I also can’t gloss over the narrator’s job as a library page and lines like ‘as a writer it is inspiring to work at a library, to see so many people reading and borrowing books, writing in notebooks and on computers. I feel validated.’ Sitting here writing this on the library info desk, I too feel validated. Thanks, Chloe!

‘As soon as you write anything down, it’s fiction.’

The inclusion of quotes and frequent references nudges Caldwell’s typical style of non-fiction writing and aids in making the reader wonder where along the spectrum of fiction to memoir this story rests. Is it autofiction? Almost entirely fiction but a shared emotional struggle? I don’t know and personally don’t want to find out because I find the mystery more engaging.In a 2016 interview with Electric Lit, Caldwell discusses the freedom that came with writing Women having usually worked in non-fiction essays and memoir like Legs Get Led Astray. ‘I’d never written in the structure of Women, like a novella, so that helped me fictionalize,’ she says, ‘I’d been working on Women for about two months before I began fictionalizing, bending truth, and adding characters.’ Yet, one is likely to wonder…who is Finn and how many layers of fiction does she reside behind.

‘She looks at me looking at her, and says, In my wildest dreams, I never thought you would look at me that way.’

A big crux of the story, it seems, is if the narrator succeeds in making you love Finn the way she did. She sets out to do it right from page one, finding herself falling in love all over again from her own descriptions. Though, personally, I found Finn to never exist solely as Finn on the page and we can only know Finn as she is defined by the narrator’s interactions as much as the narrator defines herself in Finn’s gaze. We are told Finn is manipulative, yet how true is that? Sure the circumstances of their relationship are dodgy, but how much are we manipulated by the narrator? This is another abstract playingfield of narrative mystery, and having not know Finn or the narrator without the context of the other makes their separation more intensely felt, though without having known Finn enough the narrator’s impassioned account feels a bit dull along the edges. Perhaps this is me having approached the novel in a stage in life where I’ve healed through heartbreaks and found I can enjoy the self in solitude as much as with others so the extreme first big break-up energy has also lost a bit of its edge on me. Again, this is more a Me problem, and I suspect the intensity and unhinged toxic energy will be a delight for many readers.

‘Yes, it was a crazy night—but that is to be expected, it has been a crazy month.’

I’ve seen complaints that the novel tend towards rather surface stereotypes of lesbians. While, sure, I guess that makes sense as the narrator is in her early stages of exploring the queer possibilities of her sexuality which would understandably be rather surface level depictions, Caldwell addresses this in a 2024 interview with Write or Die Magazine about how even in just a decade the discourse and language around LGBTQ+ individuals has shifted and progressed and that gap in time is felt in the novella:

‘What’s interesting in what you’re asking—is this fiction or nonfiction, is this person gay or not gay—is everyone brings to that their own projections. It was important that this narrator didn’t have a hard line on their identity. To what you’re saying, the word queer was not being used so liberally and if it were the book would say, this is easy, I’m queer. It just wouldn’t even exist in the same way. But we had to use the word bisexual, I guess…
…But again, it’s so interesting how language works because if I had had these words like pan I think I would’ve probably latched onto them. But even in interviews people would be like, so are you bi? I didn’t know. And it just felt like a really big commitment.’

This is a story about searching for identity, which explains why it does approach queerness from a straight gaze seeing as that is Caldwell’s own perspective and I suppose its great to see we now live in a time where there is a rich literature of queer novels that don’t center the straight gaze. I did, however, question if this book perhaps perpetuates some negative stereotypes as well. Namely it broadly paints lesbians as highly volatile, a doubling down on the misogynistic claims of women as overly emotional stemming back to “hysteria” being a diagnosis using women’s frustrations and feelings against them.

‘I ask Finn if things are always this insane and dramatic between two women, and she says yes. She says it’s either like this, or monotonous and boring. As if there is no in-between.’

Ultimately, though, this is a book about mental health and seeking wellness and the tensions between Finn and the narrator are a collision of each other's insecurities and darknesses. Perhaps it can be read as a commentary on how, in an era when being openly gay was far less accepted and dangerous, that tension of hiding the self from the world or even from yourself will radiate out. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin captured this as a major theme, for instance.

‘We will never go through with these plans we have for the future.’

A sad but emotionally investigative work, Women is an interesting blend of memoir and fiction where the the mystery of the mixture lends itself positively to the narrative. A short read that, admittedly, read a bit slow and repetitive, it is still a bold book on queer desire and the search for identity while also being a heart wrenching look at the destructive cycles which thwart our progress and while love can set our heart ablaze, such toxicity can burn down the palaces of love in return. It is no surprise Women has achieved a status as a modern cult classic.

3.5/5

‘Besides some aches in our bones, and the tear in my coat, we are fine. We all keep going.’

**List of Books Mentioned in Women**
A Lover's Discourse by Roland Barthes
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
Bi Lives: Bisexual Women Tell Their Stories edited by Kata Orndorff
The Buddhist by Dodie Bellamy
Don't Let Your Emotions Run Your Life
The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich
The Glass Essay by Anne Carson
I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi
The L Word: Welcome to Our Planet by Kera Bolonik
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
The Shape of Blue by Liz Scheid
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
Unlikely Friendships : 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom by Jennifer S. Holland
Unmastered by Katherine Angel
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

[Jessica]

Almost every single review on here gives a rapturous five stars, so I don't feel too bad about saying this just wasn't for me. I was excited to read it, but now considering the title I wonder if it's for people who are aging out of Girls. Being in my stodgy mid-thirties I may just be the wrong demographic?

Not liking this book made me feel old and cranky and judgy and mean. It was extremely readable and reminded me in some way of social media, like I was looking at a person's Instagram account of intimate, artfully-filtered selfies. This writer is clearly talented and the book feels very "true" and extremely self-revealing, even though it's fiction. The thing was, I did not appreciate the self that was revealed, to the point that it made me uncomfortable and angry. My strong response probably means the book is good but I didn't finish it, even though it's super short and easy to get through. I kind of wanted to throw the main character against the wall, resented the diaristic quality, and really disliked the premise even though (or possibly because) it was an experience I could personally relate to.

But my negative reaction obviously says nothing about the book's faults and everything about my own. YOU will no doubt love Women, as everyone in the universe does, except me!

[M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

A straight woman finds herself attracted to a confident, supportive, older soft butch. They are both very bad at keeping and respecting boundaries. Their relationship becomes all consuming, to the detriment of them both. This book is a chronicle of the experience. I bought it, finding the size and feel of the book attractive enough to take a chance on the prose inside. It was a quick read, and nicely paced, and quite a thorough summary of such an intensive period of time, and for that I appreciated it. As someone who didn't quite realize and have the space to unfurl aspects of their sexuality until later in adulthood, it was nice at times to read through passages of familiar feelings. But ultimately, I felt more distraught as I read, till I sat under an aura of disconcerted fatigue at the finish. There is an uncanny lack of analysis(?) by the author on her own behavior, even though she is able to articulate what it is she does and feels and says to this her first lesbian relationship. Finn is a mysterious butch who fucks with clothes on, and the author seems to never want to know why, preferring just to be the object of attention, preferring to get fucked, and later talking about how she just wants to be the object of her mother's attention for hours on their weekend trips. All novella long we hear from the author about her predilection towards addictions (drugs, pills, people, vitamins, sleep), and so it remarkably paints the entire relationship with Finn as just another addiction she wore herself out on. Finn herself is allowed to sum it up well, saying, "Writers. They think everything is about them."

And, real talk, I just can never get down with a sexually driven relationship that is cloaked in unchecked ownership love myths.

Sigh.

P.S. I feel some type of way that the author is a white woman from a nice enough (read: affluent) upbringing to love both her parents and Finn is a woman of color. Real tired of reading about rich people's flights of personal discovery through their interactions with those of different, less upwardly mobile backgrounds, no matter how much agency they are given by their white observers. But maybe that's none of my business...

[Kira · Rating 1 out of 5]

A naive, self-indulgent visit to queerness that won't be particularly revelatory to anyone who has lived as anything other than straight and cisgender for more than 5 minutes. Smells like tourism.

[Louise Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novella explores sexual confusion, female friendship, being a woman and a daughter.

This is a tale about a love affair and intimacy between women. It's written in the first person point of view. An account of a woman's first same sex relationship.

I would like to thank NetGalley, HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate and the author Chloe Caldwell for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Ярослава · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was on everybody's most impressive novel of the year lists, so I gave it a try. Sadly, it did not work for me: both protagonists felt cardboard-flat (one stitched together out of a stereotypes about lesbians 101 list, the other a stereotypical young writer with 0 preoccupation about the writerly craft or community to show for that characterization). All in all, I'm pretty sure I've seen breakups documented with more insight, humour or style on twitter than in the novel.

[Mallory · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one has been on my to-do list and pride month seemed like the right time to get to it. It’s a little disturbing that this is a cult classic since the relationship is completely toxic and horrible. I’ll all for exploration of sexuality, but let’s have those experiences be with healthy and available people. The writing was ok, and the voice of the main character was well developed. In fact given the main character is a writer a couple of times I wondered if it was a memoir and not a novella. This book is well loved by any so feel free to take my thoughts with a grain of salt. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t a book I was crazy about.

[John Gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting yet raw read. Called a cult classic novella about a woman's coming out in her short relationship with an older woman, who is already in a relationship, in her one year living in 'the city', presumably New York. An interesting read, loved by many women as it was written just prior to legalisation. 3 stars

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is... fine. There's a real disconnect, though, with the reissue. The book comes with a real self-celebratory vibe that is going harder than you'd see even a much celebrated, much lauded, much awarded book. It is a book that defined a queer generation, apparently, that it assures us was passed through the hands of queer girls to their lovers but none of my girlfriends have ever mentioned it to me. To be fair, I was old for it when it came out and I'm even older for it now, but I was expecting something big when what it is is just a pretty basic little novella about a woman's first queer relationship that hasn't entirely aged well.

All these blurbs about how sexy it is, but it isn't a very sexy book, though it refers to sex and sometimes will describe the position or length of time.

The only thing that really stuck out to me was that it's a book about an obsessive relationship with a butch woman, and somehow butch women have almost disappeared from the queer landscape. Not in real life, but in depictions of queer life, the real and the fictional. It's really weird! So I am always thankful when books about queer people remember butches exist and that they are hot. Thank you for that.

It is about an obsessive relationship, about a person struggling with addiction and self-definition, very loose twentysomething meandering which I have seen more than enough of. It's very readable and you can finish it quickly, but I wish there was more there there.

[Ahtims · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure whether this is fiction or memoir, but am sure that this was one harrowing read. I can't say I liked it, but it was disturbing to the core. I was exasperated with the main character at times, and felt sympathetic at times. But there was no empathy because I think she doesn't have much external adversities in life .. whatever problem she faces is only of her own making.
But then who am I to judge? It is said they we should live in the shoes of others to really judge.. and am not able to .
This is the story of a young female writer who finds she is bisexual after sexually experimenting with an older female and falling for her. The book follows their off -on relationship and the extreme mental angst of the narrator who calls herself bipolar and maniac.

I could never think like her or put myself in her shoes , but then I had a scary thought what if the whole humanity is actually bisexual if given a chance ..
There I stopped myself , without probing deep.

A very intense book, meant for s mature audience, and there is explicit mentioning of sexual behaviour .
Still, a book well worth reading .

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did I read the same book as everyone else on Goodreads? I expected more for a book so highly rated. The characters lacked development, seemed superficial and pulled from stereotypes the author knew about lesbians; the "meta-narrative" (if one could call it that) was off-putting; the narrator's reflection seemed practically nonexistent. The best part of the book was that it was short.

[Vartika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Caldwell seems like a talented writer of the MFA variety, but her approach to queer love/heartbreak here was a bit too straight (as in heterosexual, yes, but also simplistic) for my tastes.

Given that this novella deals, at least in part, with the narrator's coming to terms with her own attraction to women, the honesty with which it describes her initial feelings and reactions to getting with a butch is appreciable. However, its construction of the butch in question, as well as of butch-femme dynamics and queerness in general is ridden with lazy and ridden with stereotypes; for someone who haunts the gender studies aisles of her local library the narrator is uncharacteristically lacking in any actual willingness to understand her experiences (except as a manifestation of her proneness to addiction, of course).

It is probably telling that the only points at which I actively enjoyed Women were when Caldwell was quoting from other authors, and that the one instance that made me feel seen had little to do with woman-loving and everything to do with this website: "she reviews everything she reads on Goodreads."

[Anele elen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sapphic heartbreak.
I find myself wondering why I perceive stories about women who love women as so much more nuanced and intriguing. Perhaps it’s because they allow themselves to fully embrace and express all their emotions with complete devotion.
I also found the numerous references to other queer female authors especially interesting.

[Tan Markovic · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novella is a young woman’s account of her first same sex relationship. The protagonist falls deeply for a woman 19 years her senior called Finn. Finn at the time of their relationship was in a long term relationship of her own. Yeah. You all know how this ends up.

After reading the synopsis and the vast amount of positives reviews, I was excited to begin this short story. Unfortunately, it completely fell flat for me. The general tone of the book was monotonous and tedious, I didn’t end up caring about any of the characters or how their personal life or relationships turned out and the affair between the two women was unhealthy, controlling and ended up being damaging to the both of them.

The writing style didn’t sit well with me; it was like reading a series of bullet points and even at a quarter of the way through it became annoying and I got bored of reading it. The atmosphere of the book in general was very dreary and depressing, although there would be some parts where the young woman was reflecting on her relationship that it was a more enjoyable read. Maybe that’s because she was talking sense, I don’t know.

Overall, this book just didn’t agree with me for whatever reason and I personally could not recommend it to anyone I know.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank them, the publisher HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate and the author Chloe Caldwell for this opportunity.

[غبار · Rating 1 out of 5]

flat, unreflective and dependent on trite clichés to move the (lack-of-)story forward, as well as being an incredibly voyeuristic and touristy sojourn in the oh-so-mystical (the book actually uses this word to describe That One Woman that makes the str8 narrator question her sexuality) realm of queerness. i fully agree with this goodreads reviewer who writes that it "won't be particularly revelatory to anyone who has lived as anything other than straight and cisgender for more than 5 minutes". add to that anyone who has ever thought critically about gender and sexuality for more than 5 minutes. she literally moves into a new city to have this adulterous affair, which is unironically compared to a "new drug" (wow, so original, Illicit Queer Love Is Intoxicating!!), and departs when it ends on a sour note, telling us about "The second to last time I see Finn" and then "The last place I see Finn" as if anything that has come before makes us care.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Siri, play Lorde — What Was That

[Laura Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

these days I am hesitant to get too enthusiastic about a contemporary writer my age or younger because, inevitably, someone I know ends up knowing them or having gone to school with them and lots of times they end up saying the person is an asshole. maybe someone around here thinks Chloe Caldwell is an asshole. that seems possible. but I am enthusiastic about this book nonetheless!

it's one of those love affair memoirs. I guess it's presented as a novel(la), but obviously it's also true. it is about a young, up-to-this-point-considering-herself-straight woman who moves to a new town and has a sizzling affair with a partnered woman 20 years her senior. they fight & fuck & social media a lot and the narrator processes a lot of feelings. so it is a lot like one of my favorite books, The Buddhist, which the narrator of WOMEN even reads in WOMEN.

I read WOMEN in less than a day. it is quick & sexy to read. when I say quick, I don't mean easy. I wanted to say quick & sexy & fun, but that's if you consider it fun to scrape razorblades over your heart, which I guess I do.

I appreciate how Caldwell refuses to fit this story into any kind of coherent identity / coming out narrative; instead, she depicts sexuality as this sort of complicated morass that shifts based on weird chance encounters & context & emotional attachments and if you know me, you probably know that this latter sort of narrative is my JAM. there is this part I keep thinking about where the narrator says, "I figured if I was going to be with a woman, I would have been with one by now. I would know if I was bisexual or gay. Being a writer, I assumed I was at least mildly self-aware." which reminds me of this Margaret Atwood quote I read somewhere recently: "Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that is wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted." and this book fits into that I think. it's on a quest.

[Louise May Mosley · Rating 5 out of 5]

okay even though it is fiction, I refuse to believe this isn’t a memoir. WE NEED MORE QUEER MEMOIRS! It feels so real and personal, I loved the diaristic qualities. And that’s coming from GQ Magazines “Gen-Z Bridget Jones”. Yep they wrote an article about me and the rise of Bridget Jones-esque writing.
Even though we never know our narrators name, we know everything she’s thinking and I loved her. She’s relatable. I found she really tried to control how we felt about Finn, her first lesbian lover, like she was really protective and almost defensive when talking about her, which was really interesting because that’s the toxicity of it all. And then she admits later on in the book how much she hate’s herself - we love a self aware queen. Even if she’s chaotic. If you are a lesbian, who didn’t always know she was a lesbian, this one’s for you. It’s a short read. In fact my only negative is that I wish it was longer. The feminine urge to leave this on the train after I finished it so that it would fall into the hands of another woman was RIFE but I loved it so much I couldn’t part ways, here’s some quotes I loved:
“I worry that if I cannot make you fall in love with her inexplicably, inexorably and immediately the way I did, then you will not be experiencing this book in the way I hope you will”.
“Long before I understood I was a lesbian, I was hyper-aware of them”.
“Men are simple, they just want sex, it’s the women we should be afraid of”. This quote has STAYED with me because it’s so damn true.
“I ask her if she thinks I will end up with a man or a woman and very quickly she replies, Man”.
“I find solace in devastating memoirs…how is that fun for you? They ask”
“Things lose their meaning. I am bored of things having meaning. Meaning is stressful. Meaning is new-agey. Meaning means nothing.”
“I have turned into the opposite of whatever it was she was in love with. I am no fun. I am serious. I am feral”
I love Women.

[shruti · Rating 3 out of 5]

took me back to my first wlw whatevership and now im traumatized all over again

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A near-perfect little book about falling in love which also referenced all my favourite things - er, such as Rebecca Solnit and The L Word.

[Liza]

would have liked this like 1000x more if it had actually been called dyke aching (will someone plz write that one?)

[Terry Taft · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it when people just write! Candid and dramatic I loved this so much

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesterday when I came home from work there was a book waiting for me in the table in the front hall. I recognized the return address; Chloe, in handwriting, accents the "e" at the end of her name. I am grateful for this book. I am grateful for Chloe's writing in general, from her first essay collection to her sundry essays anthologized and published all over the internet. I am grateful for the two friends who introduced me to her book. "Women" is a great book. It is slim, I finished it in less than 24 hours, but I could not put it down, except to sleep (I took Benadryl). Her writing is clear yet emotional. The transitions are startling, but not jarring. I like this book a lot; I see parts of myself in this story, if things had taken a different turn. I think many people will be able to relate to this book. Though relating to a book is not necessarily a measure of its worth, it is still important, and Chloe has written an important story, shared something very personal. There are no cliches, which is really the highest praise I ever give anything, for what it's worth.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chloe's foray into the novella genre feels just as candid and personal as her essays. Women is a topsy turvy beauty of a read, from the opening (What I know for certain about this time: My pupils were expanding.) to the coming-home resolution of the end. The way Chloe writes about the various female relationships through books, movies, flashbacks, confusion, and comedy makes the book feel like its own fully-realized and passionate world. It's so good.

[Amy Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Embarking on a toxic affair and then blocking each other on Goodreads truly is lesbian culture.

[rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love toxic women

[Elin Isaksson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Underlining lines like "Sorrow leaks through my skin" while sobbing on a sunday night so maybe it's a me thing.

[deniz eilmore · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book reminds me of when your friend's mom says she "tried being a lesbian in college" but is now married to a boring man and asks gay couples who the man is in the relationship.

[tee · Rating 2 out of 5]

reading this felt like going through the private twitter account of a friend in their early 20s who is questioning just about everything, so if that's the specific vibe you’re going for then there could not be a better book for you; nothing is fully explored and you simultaneously get very particular details against the constant backdrop of experimentation with food, sex, drugs and bad relationships.

the writing, especially in the first 20-30 pages is very weak but it either got better as it moved along, or i got used to it because it didn’t bother me past that mark. i did love little parts of this book every now and then though, like picking up habits from people you are no longer in contact with, blocking them on goodreads (!), coming to terms with how you may not be the heterosexual person you always believed yourself to be, and the overall theme of how carried away one can get in self destruction— “i’m sort of taken aback to see that i look healthy and young, nothing like the wretchedness i feel on the inside.”

side note, i’m not sure what the stress on this phrasing is meant to convey?
“i never figured out if this was a symptom of falling in love or a side effect of the chinese herbs my transgender friend nathan was hooking me up with.” pg 9
“when i was sixteen, a lesbian couple in their forties built a house across the woods from us.” pg 10
“i excitedly tell one of my bisexual friends about my weekend.” pg 21