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Love The World or Get Killed Trying
Through playful poetic prose, sharp social commentary and self-deprecating gallows humor Love the World or Get Killed Trying dives into the mind of Alvina, a trans woman on the eve of turning 30. The reader is invited to follow her journey through the breathtaking wilderness of Iceland and busy city boulevards of Berlin and Paris as she probes questions of eternity, sexuality, longing, death, love, and how hard it is to remain soft when you're a ceaseless target of straight men's secret lust and open disgust.
200 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2024
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1269 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
April 4, 2024
Love The World or Get Killed Trying by Alvina Chamberland is one of these amazing genre-expensive novels which are highly entertaining, emotionally resonating, and are an intellectual treat - all at the same time, with tenderness, humour and skill.
This novel follows Alvina, a trans woman fast approaching her 30th birthday, traveling to lceland, back to Berlin, and lastly to Paris. On her journey, the protagonist reflects on her life, on intimacy (and the lack thereof), on art and literature, on violence and longing.
The entire book, we are in Alvina's head and while (or because?) she is at times a mess, it's a wildly fascinating place. Every single page is packed with references from writers like Clarice Lispector and Marlen Haushofer to dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. But it never feels like a pure name-dropping exercise but instead Chamberland weaves a complex net of references using these as starting points or illustrations for her contemplations.
Chamberland has created a fantastic voice. The narrator, Alvina, is constantly adressing the reader, making the readers part of the process thinking (and feeling) through things.
I got all the things hoped for from this novel, but furthermore was suprised by a lot of things which just spoke to me on a very fun personal level (like, too, have an interesting story about looking for a grave of a famous dancer at a Parisian cemetery). I have been to a lot of the places mentioned in the novel and I loved re-visiting them through Alvina's specific lense and experiences. I also read this novel at the same time as was reading Jules Gil-Peterson's A Short History of Trans Misogyny and think this made for an excelent pairing.
This novel follows Alvina, a trans woman fast approaching her 30th birthday, traveling to lceland, back to Berlin, and lastly to Paris. On her journey, the protagonist reflects on her life, on intimacy (and the lack thereof), on art and literature, on violence and longing.
The entire book, we are in Alvina's head and while (or because?) she is at times a mess, it's a wildly fascinating place. Every single page is packed with references from writers like Clarice Lispector and Marlen Haushofer to dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. But it never feels like a pure name-dropping exercise but instead Chamberland weaves a complex net of references using these as starting points or illustrations for her contemplations.
Chamberland has created a fantastic voice. The narrator, Alvina, is constantly adressing the reader, making the readers part of the process thinking (and feeling) through things.
I got all the things hoped for from this novel, but furthermore was suprised by a lot of things which just spoke to me on a very fun personal level (like, too, have an interesting story about looking for a grave of a famous dancer at a Parisian cemetery). I have been to a lot of the places mentioned in the novel and I loved re-visiting them through Alvina's specific lense and experiences. I also read this novel at the same time as was reading Jules Gil-Peterson's A Short History of Trans Misogyny and think this made for an excelent pairing.
April 11, 2024
i reccomend!
April 23, 2024
This book has locked in the top spot on my best of the year list already. It’s simply not possible that anyone can top it.
Chamberland’s novel is an autofiction masterpiece. Alvina is a captivating narrator who relates her experiences as a trans woman with great beauty and powerful emotion. Chamberland takes us through moments of joy, sorrow, loss, contentment, alienation, fear, and determination that are tangibly raw, while never losing her firm control as a supremely talented writer. I give this novel the highest possible recommendation. As a depiction of a trans experience, but even more so as a stunning literary achievement.
Chamberland’s novel is an autofiction masterpiece. Alvina is a captivating narrator who relates her experiences as a trans woman with great beauty and powerful emotion. Chamberland takes us through moments of joy, sorrow, loss, contentment, alienation, fear, and determination that are tangibly raw, while never losing her firm control as a supremely talented writer. I give this novel the highest possible recommendation. As a depiction of a trans experience, but even more so as a stunning literary achievement.
July 10, 2025
Okay hear me out…. In theory this book should have been everything I loved. Prose, queer, a bit dark! I even purchased a copy signed by the author. I was enjoying the first third and this totally crashed and burned for me. Absolute masterclass in self pity and the author absolutely cannot read the room.
This was published in 2024, the author MULTIPLE times calls themself the lowest class in society. A white European American woman trying to play the oppression Olympics in a post BLM world is craaaazy. Alvina is a white Swedish American so I know she knows how Latino immigrants are being treated in the US right now. The book is written during her travels to places like Iceland and Paris. The privilege to even go to these countries is completely lost on her, legal Latino immigrants are being illegally detained at our borders when they try to travel.
Alvina also spends way too much time telling us how smart and funny and terminally unique and feminine she is and how this makes it hard to date her. We get it, you’re amazing. Entirely too much time is spent looking for love in clubs where we know it simply isn’t to be found. Bad conversations with men in clubs isn’t specific to the trans experience, that’s the life of every woman.
And finally, the excessive use of the term “lapdog” instead of laptop genuinely drove me insane. Couldn’t stand it for no specific reason.
This would have been better served as staying a diary, or a conversation with a therapist. There was a huge missed opportunity to develop the story further past surface level complaining and we just never really got there. The author started to get there with the comments about rape but I don’t feel that it was developed enough. The only redeeming quality was the unique writing style. At the very end when she says “why am I telling you all of this?” I think that summarized my feelings pretty well.
This was published in 2024, the author MULTIPLE times calls themself the lowest class in society. A white European American woman trying to play the oppression Olympics in a post BLM world is craaaazy. Alvina is a white Swedish American so I know she knows how Latino immigrants are being treated in the US right now. The book is written during her travels to places like Iceland and Paris. The privilege to even go to these countries is completely lost on her, legal Latino immigrants are being illegally detained at our borders when they try to travel.
Alvina also spends way too much time telling us how smart and funny and terminally unique and feminine she is and how this makes it hard to date her. We get it, you’re amazing. Entirely too much time is spent looking for love in clubs where we know it simply isn’t to be found. Bad conversations with men in clubs isn’t specific to the trans experience, that’s the life of every woman.
And finally, the excessive use of the term “lapdog” instead of laptop genuinely drove me insane. Couldn’t stand it for no specific reason.
This would have been better served as staying a diary, or a conversation with a therapist. There was a huge missed opportunity to develop the story further past surface level complaining and we just never really got there. The author started to get there with the comments about rape but I don’t feel that it was developed enough. The only redeeming quality was the unique writing style. At the very end when she says “why am I telling you all of this?” I think that summarized my feelings pretty well.
January 13, 2025
This was a very challenging read. Although the book itself if relatively short it took me months to read. It is written as a sort of stream of consciousness which was difficult to follow at times. I also found the prose to be very flowery and pretentious. While I appreciated hearing about a trans woman’s experience I don’t think this book was for me.
June 13, 2024
humorous and emotional, I was surprised at how difficult this book was to get through. not on account of the writing, which I really enjoyed, but because of how painful nearly every sentence is. a lot of repetition around certain tropes - specifically being desired and being called out as intimidatingly smart or beautiful - did irk me at times, but because the author acknowledges this decision I came to appreciate it (something to the lines of: "if you think this is annoying imagine how I feel living it")
Alvina speaks as honestly as she can, and somehow manages to not place blame on the person, instead the system that puts her and people like her down. her book does an excellent job at trying to reach out to anybody who wants to better understand the reality of being a trans woman.
I would look forward to any future work should she decide to write another
Alvina speaks as honestly as she can, and somehow manages to not place blame on the person, instead the system that puts her and people like her down. her book does an excellent job at trying to reach out to anybody who wants to better understand the reality of being a trans woman.
I would look forward to any future work should she decide to write another
November 5, 2024
Overweldigend eerlijk,gevuld met zinnen die ik zou willen dat ik kon schrijven;
“ as the bus drives through a landscape of lush hills filled with grass and sheep who wont become meat market fashion victims If I have a say in the matter, which I dont”
“Fancy cars a.k.a male stilletos”
“Empathy is love - non detached compassion beyond the fixed borders of identity politics”
Het zit gewoon helemaal vol met tegelijkertijd hilarische taal en zware thema’s, vol hoop schrijft ze haar gedachten achterna. Dit is een boek waarvan ik enorm blij ben dat ik het toevallig tegengekomen ben.
“ as the bus drives through a landscape of lush hills filled with grass and sheep who wont become meat market fashion victims If I have a say in the matter, which I dont”
“Fancy cars a.k.a male stilletos”
“Empathy is love - non detached compassion beyond the fixed borders of identity politics”
Het zit gewoon helemaal vol met tegelijkertijd hilarische taal en zware thema’s, vol hoop schrijft ze haar gedachten achterna. Dit is een boek waarvan ik enorm blij ben dat ik het toevallig tegengekomen ben.
November 14, 2024
Soms vond ik het boek iets te zweverig naar mijn voorkeur, maar nog steeds een heel mooie, moedige, oprechte en soms ook hartverscheurende getuigenis van het leven als transvrouw. Enorm veel respect voor Alvina.
February 11, 2025
some of it was so moving & powerful but overall it just felt a lil too rambly for me
November 3, 2024
If Patty Smith had the standpoint she’d have written this: very depressing yet beautifully written :)
July 21, 2024
Amazing writing. Stream of consciousness but also with plenty of beautiful prose. Tread with care if you’re a trans woman. Would very highly rec otherwise!
October 30, 2024
Not like any book I’ve ever read in that it’s like reading someone’s super personal, graphic diary. Felt like it kind of lacked a purpose outside of cynicism
April 28, 2025
3.5
I loved the writing style and the beginning. It's quite plotless and I should have read it in a shorter period of time but didn't and that's on me.
I loved the writing style and the beginning. It's quite plotless and I should have read it in a shorter period of time but didn't and that's on me.
May 24, 2024
Love the world or get killed trying. Door: Alvina Chamberland.
Ik herinner me de kleur van zijn ogen, veel te dicht bij die van mij, niet meer. Ik weet nog wel welk liedje er speelde (Paint it black) omdat ik nog steeds misselijk wordt als het op de radio voorbijkomt. Dat is wat Chamberland lezen met je doet: het roept een hele wereld op, ook dingen die je je liever niet herinnert. Trigger warning dus.
Ik ben/was een cisvrouw die er heel lang als een grote kleuterjongen uitzag, mannelijke aandacht overkwam me niet vaak. De juiste toch niet. Ik heb mijn portie foute aandacht gehad maar die valt in het niet qua aantal en impact bij wat Alvina als transvrouw meemaakt(e).
Ik kan me dus soms enigszins in haar verplaatsen maar vaak ook niet. Wat niet erg is want daar brengt zij meeslepend en vakkundig verandering in, Love the world or get killed trying is zo moedig, eerlijk, niets ontziend pijnlijk openhartig dat er een hele wereld voor je opengaat. Je kijkt mee door Chamberlands ogen naar de wereld die haar omringt én de wereld in haar hoofd. Die wereld is verre van rooskleurig jammer genoeg. Cismannen begeren haar volop maar nooit voor wie ze is, wél om wat ze is (transvrouw).
De eenzaamheid, wanhoop, boosheid, rusteloosheid die dat teweegbrengt is pijnlijk om te lezen. Ik herken haar hypochondrie, liefde voor de natuur, slapeloosheid, piekeren,… Maar ik heb als troost een gelukkige relatie die me kan omarmen als de wereld te eng aanvoelt. Ik wens Alvina dat ook toe.
Wat een moedige vrouw, wat een boeiend boek!
Ik herinner me de kleur van zijn ogen, veel te dicht bij die van mij, niet meer. Ik weet nog wel welk liedje er speelde (Paint it black) omdat ik nog steeds misselijk wordt als het op de radio voorbijkomt. Dat is wat Chamberland lezen met je doet: het roept een hele wereld op, ook dingen die je je liever niet herinnert. Trigger warning dus.
Ik ben/was een cisvrouw die er heel lang als een grote kleuterjongen uitzag, mannelijke aandacht overkwam me niet vaak. De juiste toch niet. Ik heb mijn portie foute aandacht gehad maar die valt in het niet qua aantal en impact bij wat Alvina als transvrouw meemaakt(e).
Ik kan me dus soms enigszins in haar verplaatsen maar vaak ook niet. Wat niet erg is want daar brengt zij meeslepend en vakkundig verandering in, Love the world or get killed trying is zo moedig, eerlijk, niets ontziend pijnlijk openhartig dat er een hele wereld voor je opengaat. Je kijkt mee door Chamberlands ogen naar de wereld die haar omringt én de wereld in haar hoofd. Die wereld is verre van rooskleurig jammer genoeg. Cismannen begeren haar volop maar nooit voor wie ze is, wél om wat ze is (transvrouw).
De eenzaamheid, wanhoop, boosheid, rusteloosheid die dat teweegbrengt is pijnlijk om te lezen. Ik herken haar hypochondrie, liefde voor de natuur, slapeloosheid, piekeren,… Maar ik heb als troost een gelukkige relatie die me kan omarmen als de wereld te eng aanvoelt. Ik wens Alvina dat ook toe.
Wat een moedige vrouw, wat een boeiend boek!
May 23, 2025
Alvina Chamberland is heir apparent to Jean Genet in his novelist mode. Or so it first appeared to me when reading "Love the World or Get Killed Trying." (And you know I love me some Genet!) Halfway through her book, however, either the writing shifted or my POV did. Full disclosure: I picked up her book again after a few month hiatus, at which point, the autofiction seemed to change its raison d'être. What had initially felt like exuberant defiance (when Chamberland recounts a trip to Iceland) morphed into raw confessional (when she recalls her trip to Paris). A longing to connect informs both sections but in the latter half of "Love the World...," the loneliness grows more pronounced. As Chamberland herself states, and here I paraphrase, Gays and Lesbians are looking to have love relationships accepted while Trans women are looking to survive. It's a cruel imbalance that highlights just how anti-trans matters are. Chamberland's "magical, brutalist" novel, full of wit as well as pain, wisdom as well as fury, isn't required reading. But it could be. Her analysis of the dynamic between straight men and straight trans women is totally on the money!
August 31, 2024
Love the World or Get Killed Trying was out June book club pick, and yet despite it only being 250 pages long, it took me the best part of two months to get finish this book. This was partially down to me (I moved house in this time and fell out of the habit of picking up physical books and into a reading slump), but also partially down to the book - as much as it was enjoyable to read, I never found myself thinking about it after I’d put it down.
The novel follows Alvina, a trans woman about to turn 30, as she ponders questions of ageing, love, and longing. I really wanted to LOVE this novel, but unfortunately I found myself not liking it. Chamberland’s prose is exquisite, but the narrator’s voice is too disconnected and tends to tell her emotions rather than showing them, making Alvina difficult to empathise with, no matter how universal the emotions she experience are.
This isn’t a bad book at all, but it was, at least for me, a disappointment. That said, the writing was overwhelmingly beautiful, and I am definitely curious to follow Chamberland’s English language career.
The novel follows Alvina, a trans woman about to turn 30, as she ponders questions of ageing, love, and longing. I really wanted to LOVE this novel, but unfortunately I found myself not liking it. Chamberland’s prose is exquisite, but the narrator’s voice is too disconnected and tends to tell her emotions rather than showing them, making Alvina difficult to empathise with, no matter how universal the emotions she experience are.
This isn’t a bad book at all, but it was, at least for me, a disappointment. That said, the writing was overwhelmingly beautiful, and I am definitely curious to follow Chamberland’s English language career.
February 22, 2025
This book is more memoir adjacent as Chamberland is more conveying the feelings of experiences rather than her exact life or some exact story that happened. She has this beautiful way of crafting a story where it enmeshes you in this pure, raw feeling of it. Her wordcraft is unique and unlike anything I've seen before. I loved how she forces the reader to be involved. We as the reader are constantly being addressed and invited in to sit with the narrative, to witness abuse hurled at her, to understand her feelings. It's a book that I feel like delves right into your heart and screams at it to pay attention! Pay attention to Alvina! See her but not as some oddity but as a person living a deep and richly felt life. She does not shy from how she has been brutalized by the world, in fact she opens the book a recounting of her rape, and I think it firmly sets the kind of book this is.
May 20, 2024
A -trans- Woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown…
My dear friend miss Alvina Chamberland was in The Netherlands to present her book Love the World Or Get Killed Trying. I got a signed copy of my own, and I’m sure enjoying her witty, smart, loving, funny and at times too confrontational way of writing.
I’m reading her and I’m reading my own incessant internal dialogues. Her writing tastes like an Almodovar film mixed with magic realism (or Magic Brutalism, a term coined by her to explain the extremes of the trans experience, in a world not ready for us).
In a way she is me, us, and we all are Alvina.
Get a copy, enjoy it, leave reviews and give it to your love ones (cis and trans alike).
October 29, 2024
Vraag me niet wat de plot was maar ik begrijp het wel.
Eigenlijk een beetje een koortsdroom.
Soms iets te wollig (ja, zelfs voor mij) maar als ik in de mood was heel goed te doen.
Brutaal eerlijk en angstloos geschreven.
Hier wat onderstreepjes:
"Reader, follow me now, quickly, up the escalators, to the roof! I am on top of the world. I am the toast of Paris. I sashay foreward in my stilettos. You would almost think i am a young, self-confident woman. I am not."
" You know dating a trans girl is like opening a bag of chips in church, everyone stares with scorn but deep down they want some chips too..."
"My theory is lack of love kills more trans girls than punches, stares, stabs, dysphoria, rapes, gropes, guns and bullying put togheter."
Eigenlijk een beetje een koortsdroom.
Soms iets te wollig (ja, zelfs voor mij) maar als ik in de mood was heel goed te doen.
Brutaal eerlijk en angstloos geschreven.
Hier wat onderstreepjes:
"Reader, follow me now, quickly, up the escalators, to the roof! I am on top of the world. I am the toast of Paris. I sashay foreward in my stilettos. You would almost think i am a young, self-confident woman. I am not."
" You know dating a trans girl is like opening a bag of chips in church, everyone stares with scorn but deep down they want some chips too..."
"My theory is lack of love kills more trans girls than punches, stares, stabs, dysphoria, rapes, gropes, guns and bullying put togheter."
September 17, 2024
“i will never understand why my feminine body garners so much attention, while my superpower, my feminine intensity, is feared like a rushing flood or the point of a needle.”
very clarice lispector - hard to read at times for multiple reasons (difficult content, heavy lyricism) but this is not a criticism of the book so much as it is a criticism of my own brain. social media ruined my attention span. the narrator’s voice is one of the absolute strongest i’ve read in a book all year. it felt like listening to the sister ive always wanted tell me all about her life and i was rapt. extremely fun despite the dark subject matter
very clarice lispector - hard to read at times for multiple reasons (difficult content, heavy lyricism) but this is not a criticism of the book so much as it is a criticism of my own brain. social media ruined my attention span. the narrator’s voice is one of the absolute strongest i’ve read in a book all year. it felt like listening to the sister ive always wanted tell me all about her life and i was rapt. extremely fun despite the dark subject matter
August 3, 2025
To be completely honest. I think I was not in the place for lyrical prose so I found the main character incredibly annoying for the first half of the book.
In retrospect, I think I needed a bit more show and lot less tell. The part where the main character is in Paris were my favorite parts but when she started to turn back to the reader to say things again I literally thought to myself: ugh, stop talking to me!!! (Perhaps I was too exposed ahahaha)
In the acknowledgements section, the author says the lyrical prose was a political choice and her reasons make sense. Her style was effective and thought provoking, so I can only rate it 5 stars!
In retrospect, I think I needed a bit more show and lot less tell. The part where the main character is in Paris were my favorite parts but when she started to turn back to the reader to say things again I literally thought to myself: ugh, stop talking to me!!! (Perhaps I was too exposed ahahaha)
In the acknowledgements section, the author says the lyrical prose was a political choice and her reasons make sense. Her style was effective and thought provoking, so I can only rate it 5 stars!
December 27, 2023
I had the privilege to be one of the early readers of this novel! It’s glorious - funny, incisive, playful, poetic, asking big political and philosophical questions while not being afraid to take risks with its form. As a fellow writer, I personally felt that there was a ton for me to learn from this book - especially in how Chamberland constructs the protagonist’s interior life/world, taking us to the edge of the self with flair and authenticity. Would highly recommend this novel.
March 14, 2024
Alvina has a distinctive voice and it was a pleasure to spend time with that voice reading this book. It manages to find comedy in the absurd circumstances of life as a hot trans woman who is attracted to men. Its a hard lane to end up in and Alvina writes about it with wit and grace. Its not a victim story. The Alvina character (who may or may not be Alvina in everyday life) can be kind of a hot mess, and that warms me to her story as we've all been a mess at some time or other, hot or not.
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December 18, 2025i don’t want to rate this, because i just really did not enjoy the writing style at all. it wasn’t badly written, i just found it to be a frustrating reading experience (for me). i also didn’t realize this was auto fiction, which i usually try to avoid. it brought up super valid ideas, just not in a way that worked for me!
April 29, 2024
the most human portrayal of the mind of mine and other trans women…thought provoking, emotive, bittersweet to the very end, I felt like I was inside the authors mind in the best way, Alvina you are a genius and a gift!
April 3, 2024
Like is Clarice Lispector and Nina Arsenault shared a nervous breakdown.
August 8, 2024
I really had a hard time getting through this one. There are really beautiful sentences in this book that are worth it here and there, which is what kept me going. And also out of respect for Alvina, I wanted to give a chance to every word she had to say and not censor her by clapping the book shut never to open it again. But it was really hard to focus on for me, I had to read it in small sips and I can’t say I had the best reading experience. I spent a lot of the time reading sentences multiple times to understand the thing they were imaging and it didn’t flow easily in my brain which made it harder for me to connect to the text unfortunately. I also took a chance on this book because I was curious after reading critics about it but I knew it might not be the type of genre I enjoy, so it’s a matter of personal reading preference as well that defined my reading experience.
There are lots of important things said in this novel that needed to be voiced and I’m glad she’s been given the chance to do it and gets to have people read these words. She makes really good points about the treatment of trans women by straight men that are important to talk about for example. And the writing about trauma was at times really hitting close to home, and as I said, beautifully written. But I still felt like somehow I couldn’t get inside her bubble to be the us she wants to be with her reader. I guess we’re just very different people as well despite my ability to understand how it’s like to have too gigantic thoughtfeelings, and always feeling like the odd one out as well.
I feel like a lot of the book is a call for compassion and understanding, and with how raw and honest it is saying that you weren’t feeling it nor enjoying it feels cruel and disrespectful to the authoress herself as a result, which is not something I like to feel when writing an honest review. She wrote about that perpetual fear of not being understood or seen for who you are which I understand all too well for reasons of my own, and I know how that can be a hard burden on a person. But I also felt like all book long I was told by her writing that I wasn’t allowed to dislike her very same writing and it made me feel trapped in a way. I do take comfort in knowing that lots of people did connect with it even if I didn’t and it’s ok, just as we can’t form connexions with every human being I suppose it’s the same with writers and books.
She would however probably be thrilled to know her novel is now standing in my library right next to my copy of the uncensored 2023 edition of Violette Leduc’s Ravages.
There are lots of important things said in this novel that needed to be voiced and I’m glad she’s been given the chance to do it and gets to have people read these words. She makes really good points about the treatment of trans women by straight men that are important to talk about for example. And the writing about trauma was at times really hitting close to home, and as I said, beautifully written. But I still felt like somehow I couldn’t get inside her bubble to be the us she wants to be with her reader. I guess we’re just very different people as well despite my ability to understand how it’s like to have too gigantic thoughtfeelings, and always feeling like the odd one out as well.
I feel like a lot of the book is a call for compassion and understanding, and with how raw and honest it is saying that you weren’t feeling it nor enjoying it feels cruel and disrespectful to the authoress herself as a result, which is not something I like to feel when writing an honest review. She wrote about that perpetual fear of not being understood or seen for who you are which I understand all too well for reasons of my own, and I know how that can be a hard burden on a person. But I also felt like all book long I was told by her writing that I wasn’t allowed to dislike her very same writing and it made me feel trapped in a way. I do take comfort in knowing that lots of people did connect with it even if I didn’t and it’s ok, just as we can’t form connexions with every human being I suppose it’s the same with writers and books.
She would however probably be thrilled to know her novel is now standing in my library right next to my copy of the uncensored 2023 edition of Violette Leduc’s Ravages.
October 7, 2024
Autofiction just does something with my brain.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews