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Plum
“You wish to never see a plum again in your life… You When I am an adult, I will never have a fruit tree. I will never be like this.”
For fans of Sarah Rose Etter and Scott McClanahan, Plum is a darkly beautiful, unflinching novel about modern girlhood in the internet age, the daily toll of trauma, and the limits of love.
Told entirely in the second person, Plum follows J as she grows from kid to teen in a house ruled by her alcoholic dad and complicit mother. Her older brother is sometimes wonderful, sometimes gross, and he’s her only hope of getting out. J’s world is one of nail polish, above-ground pools, and drive-thrus—and of violence, carelessness, and so many rules. J covets the peace that comes when she slips on her headphones, turns on her handheld radio, and dreams of how she and her brother can make their escape.
When her brother leaves home and disappears, so does J’s best chance to flee her parents’ chaotic orbit. Alone and angry, J reaches through her computer screen for the life she blonde hair, glittering nails, attention, freedom. As she stumbles into adulthood with no template to follow, J must figure out how to build a family for herself full of the love she deserves. In her brutally compelling debut, Anderegg turns her singular gaze on the generational patterns of addiction and abuse.
For fans of Sarah Rose Etter and Scott McClanahan, Plum is a darkly beautiful, unflinching novel about modern girlhood in the internet age, the daily toll of trauma, and the limits of love.
Told entirely in the second person, Plum follows J as she grows from kid to teen in a house ruled by her alcoholic dad and complicit mother. Her older brother is sometimes wonderful, sometimes gross, and he’s her only hope of getting out. J’s world is one of nail polish, above-ground pools, and drive-thrus—and of violence, carelessness, and so many rules. J covets the peace that comes when she slips on her headphones, turns on her handheld radio, and dreams of how she and her brother can make their escape.
When her brother leaves home and disappears, so does J’s best chance to flee her parents’ chaotic orbit. Alone and angry, J reaches through her computer screen for the life she blonde hair, glittering nails, attention, freedom. As she stumbles into adulthood with no template to follow, J must figure out how to build a family for herself full of the love she deserves. In her brutally compelling debut, Anderegg turns her singular gaze on the generational patterns of addiction and abuse.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published April 8, 2025
32 people are currently reading
1692 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
April 10, 2025
You read and read and read books. You constantly wonder, “Why do you read so much? What are you running from?” But you pay no mind. You’re use to running from the bad thoughts. You gravitate towards pieces of literature that may resemble a broken piece inside of you. It makes you feel less alone. It makes you feel like someone out there understands.
So you read a book called Plum by Andy Anderegg, and from the last line of the first page, “…When I am an adult, I will never have a fruit tree. I will never be like this”, you knew that if you continued reading this book… it was going to open something you’ve kept locked up. You’ve kept those memories strapped up in a dark corner of your mind.
But you keep reading because you’re curious. Surely, there can’t be a book that can bring a relatability that hurts so much. But you are wrong, so so so wrong. You read about a tragic childhood through someone else’s eyes. You read about building a faux world in order to survive. You read about parents that hit a little too close to home. It doesn’t take much to picture it. You’ve lived through pieces of it. You see yourself in a character more than you ever thought possible.
You want to reach out to the author and give them a hug. You want to thank them for writing this book. You want to thank the instagram forces that be for bringing this book into your purview. But most importantly — you want to cry and cry after you finish the book. And you will let out some sobs, and ruin your eyeliner. You will then go and hug your pets and your husband. You will then cherish this book for the rest of your life.
Edit: if you’re reading this deciding if you should buy - this is me telling you you ABSOLUTELY should.
Thank you @hubcitywriters and @andyanderegg ❤️
So you read a book called Plum by Andy Anderegg, and from the last line of the first page, “…When I am an adult, I will never have a fruit tree. I will never be like this”, you knew that if you continued reading this book… it was going to open something you’ve kept locked up. You’ve kept those memories strapped up in a dark corner of your mind.
But you keep reading because you’re curious. Surely, there can’t be a book that can bring a relatability that hurts so much. But you are wrong, so so so wrong. You read about a tragic childhood through someone else’s eyes. You read about building a faux world in order to survive. You read about parents that hit a little too close to home. It doesn’t take much to picture it. You’ve lived through pieces of it. You see yourself in a character more than you ever thought possible.
You want to reach out to the author and give them a hug. You want to thank them for writing this book. You want to thank the instagram forces that be for bringing this book into your purview. But most importantly — you want to cry and cry after you finish the book. And you will let out some sobs, and ruin your eyeliner. You will then go and hug your pets and your husband. You will then cherish this book for the rest of your life.
Edit: if you’re reading this deciding if you should buy - this is me telling you you ABSOLUTELY should.
Thank you @hubcitywriters and @andyanderegg ❤️
April 17, 2025
Favorite book of 2025. Recomend to anyone. I wasn’t sure how the second person would land but it works SO WELL. It does not feel like a gimmick or just something new for the sake of being new. It feels like the only way the book could be written. It was easy to read but also felt very satisfying and interesting. I sometimes am not that into modern fiction because it can feel a bit shallow. This book is not that at all. It was engaging and honest. It joins the ranks for me of Yaa Gyasi and Sally Rooney as modern fiction that is adding something new, vulnerable, and real to the genre.
March 2, 2025
I finished this amazing book in a day. I wanted it to end quickly because it was heartbreaking and I never wanted it to end because it was so beautiful.
June 5, 2025
traumatizing. 10/10
September 27, 2025
Painful and excellent.
July 4, 2025
Wow. This book felt like picking off a scab. It felt like me but also I am the brother and also there is no brother (at least like that, at least in my memories).
///
“You do not know this yet, but you are raising you.”
“It’s easier now to not call or talk. Who would want to hear how long it’s been and why can’t you call more?”
“You are like your mom and like your dad yet you will tell people who do not know you yet that you are nothing like them. They are them, and you are escaped. You are wrong about this, but you do not even tell yourself.”
“…you are thirty-two, you have a husband, a dishwasher, a full set of plastic containers with matching lids.”
“It's done. "Yeah," you say. You say it with an out breath, with that final leaving feeling like your mother is not yours anymore. She is gone. You are sad with her sadness and you are sad with yours too. One day you will have only your sadness and not hers. That day will start soon—it is not today, but you are already halfway closer tomorrow, and halfway closer again, and halfway, and halfway. Until one day halfway is near enough to there that it feels the same. You are you and she is she. She is your mom and she is delusional and she has no idea what other people are, that they are humans with feelings too. That they (you) do more than things for her, that they breathe and have their own little hopes and that they love her back.”
///
“You do not know this yet, but you are raising you.”
“It’s easier now to not call or talk. Who would want to hear how long it’s been and why can’t you call more?”
“You are like your mom and like your dad yet you will tell people who do not know you yet that you are nothing like them. They are them, and you are escaped. You are wrong about this, but you do not even tell yourself.”
“…you are thirty-two, you have a husband, a dishwasher, a full set of plastic containers with matching lids.”
“It's done. "Yeah," you say. You say it with an out breath, with that final leaving feeling like your mother is not yours anymore. She is gone. You are sad with her sadness and you are sad with yours too. One day you will have only your sadness and not hers. That day will start soon—it is not today, but you are already halfway closer tomorrow, and halfway closer again, and halfway, and halfway. Until one day halfway is near enough to there that it feels the same. You are you and she is she. She is your mom and she is delusional and she has no idea what other people are, that they are humans with feelings too. That they (you) do more than things for her, that they breathe and have their own little hopes and that they love her back.”
November 26, 2025
this book was compelling and sad and written incredibly well. it is probably a four star read based on the quality of the content but it bummed me out the whole time. i did not laugh and i cried a bit.
August 19, 2025
this started off great, lost me in the middle, and never really got me back. I felt an increasing emotional distance from the characters as the story went on and the last half felt rushed.
May 3, 2025
You will say, “No party, please. I would like the money to get a makeover.” Your mom will hand you the two-hundred dollars and drive you to the salon. Hours later, your mom will see the results and say, “Now that is flat ugly,” will laugh. She will say what she thinks, as if it matters, as if you should hear those words for the rest of your life, echoing around in the deep-sea cave of your skull.
July 5, 2025
this book was tender and jagged and emotional all at once. i’m not a fan of books in second person typically but when i read the synopsis of the novel i had to check it out. this book hits hard and it doesn’t end the way you want it to, but it is so worth it
May 16, 2025
This was just beautiful in the most heartbreaking way.
April 18, 2025
Told exclusively in second person, we meet J when she's a young girl, just as she's witnessing an onslaught of verbal and physical abuse directed by her alcoholic dad at her older brother. Desperately, she tries to get in trouble to take some of the abuse away from her brother, with no effect. The relationship between the siblings sours with time, mostly as J's expectation is that her brother will rescue her from the evils of her family. Definitely not an easy read but one that is so stunning and filled with such vivid and constantly evolving drama, it left me utterly stunned and speechless.
September 28, 2025
this was so brutal but beautifully written i found myself crying the whole time
May 17, 2025
I could hardly put this book down. It was amazing, dark, scary, sad, insightful, horrifying, exciting, and everything else. The second person was interesting, because it made me feel like I was the main character and I was doing, feeling, and thinking what the main character was. The poetic nature of the book was really amazing, it's like the author was a never ending fountain of metaphor. I loved it. Looking forward to more from the author.
August 12, 2025
Favorite lines:
You look through pictures with your brother. As he flips through the photos, he says so casually, “I smiled all the time before I was eight.”
The sentence falls on the floor like a dropped wallet. You don’t pick it up. You don’t half jog after him to tap his shoulder and wave the lost folded leather. You sit there. The difference, you see, between the two of you, is that your brother said it, straight-faced no joking.
He is not afraid. He is not theirs. He is his. He is an adult and he has kids and he has himself and he bought himself his glasses. He is a person who has been through a fire and has come out the other side and somehow his charred body, his dripping skin healed back over, and he doesn’t even care if someone thinks he’s deformed. Your brother is no one needing saving. He is not a thing for you to chase. He is as tall as a statue, as sure of himself as if he were on a pedestal riding a horse. He is the victor.
-------
My 52nd book of the year that definitely earned a spot for my top 3 most fave so far this year. This had left me feelings that I could imagine lingering with me and hitting me up in one random afternoon years from now. The writing style really sets it apart from the stories I've read in the past months.
The 2nd pov narrative style was all new to me and I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I find myself looking forward to discovering more novels in this style. It made the story more immersive and easier to imagine yourself in the narrator's situations and felt somehow glimpses of how she felt.
Plum has such a power to infuse diverse emotions I have never quite experienced (yet) in my own life. But when the therapist pointed out that the J was both perpetrator, victim, and hero, it didn’t just land on her. It surprisingly struck something within me too. I realized I’ve been all three in my own story, especially in the context of my own traumas.
Overall, I love how it brought me to the root of trauma all the way to the messy and unglorified journey towards healing. How I wish I could retell my own stories eloquently and with courage the way J did.
-- edited
You look through pictures with your brother. As he flips through the photos, he says so casually, “I smiled all the time before I was eight.”
The sentence falls on the floor like a dropped wallet. You don’t pick it up. You don’t half jog after him to tap his shoulder and wave the lost folded leather. You sit there. The difference, you see, between the two of you, is that your brother said it, straight-faced no joking.
He is not afraid. He is not theirs. He is his. He is an adult and he has kids and he has himself and he bought himself his glasses. He is a person who has been through a fire and has come out the other side and somehow his charred body, his dripping skin healed back over, and he doesn’t even care if someone thinks he’s deformed. Your brother is no one needing saving. He is not a thing for you to chase. He is as tall as a statue, as sure of himself as if he were on a pedestal riding a horse. He is the victor.
-------
My 52nd book of the year that definitely earned a spot for my top 3 most fave so far this year. This had left me feelings that I could imagine lingering with me and hitting me up in one random afternoon years from now. The writing style really sets it apart from the stories I've read in the past months.
The 2nd pov narrative style was all new to me and I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I find myself looking forward to discovering more novels in this style. It made the story more immersive and easier to imagine yourself in the narrator's situations and felt somehow glimpses of how she felt.
Plum has such a power to infuse diverse emotions I have never quite experienced (yet) in my own life. But when the therapist pointed out that the J was both perpetrator, victim, and hero, it didn’t just land on her. It surprisingly struck something within me too. I realized I’ve been all three in my own story, especially in the context of my own traumas.
Overall, I love how it brought me to the root of trauma all the way to the messy and unglorified journey towards healing. How I wish I could retell my own stories eloquently and with courage the way J did.
-- edited
July 18, 2025
Second-person narratives are rare and not easy to write. But PLUM shows us how powerful it can be when done well. Andy Anderegg puts the reader into the story in a way that even first-person doesn't achieve. It's as if someone asked J (the fictional narrator) the question "What can you tell me about yourself?" and the book is the answer. I've never read anything quite like it, and it's haunting me.
May 6, 2025
Thank you to Hub City Press for the gifted copy! This book was published in the US on April 8th, 2025.
Plum by Andy Anderegg is one of the most devastating and precise portrayals of familial abuse I’ve ever read. Written in second-person, it doesn't just tell you a story—it makes you live it. J., the narrator, is a child watching her older brother take the brunt of their father’s violence while she scrambles to stay small, stay good, stay unnoticed. From the very first chapter, I felt myself in her—hypervigilant to the moods of an unstable parent, flinching at every slammed door, learning to read adult faces like they were sacred texts, trained by chaos to anticipate disaster before it speaks.
J.’s voice is sharp, poetic, and eerily detached—like so many of us who learned too early that feeling deeply could be dangerous. Her loyalty to her brother is the backbone of her childhood, and yet even that becomes frayed under the pressure of their parents’ manipulation. She is taught to believe he’s the problem, the defiant one, while their father’s rage simmers just beneath every breakfast table interaction. And as her brother spirals—fighting at school, disappearing, eventually hospitalized—J. internalizes what so many abused daughters do: that survival is earned by being quiet, by being good, by disappearing into herself.
So much of Plum reflects the emotional architecture of my own past. The parentification. The shame. The small betrayals I told myself were love. The prose—lyrical, clipped, and viscerally present—captures the staccato rhythm of trauma: looping thoughts, dissociation, the endless calculations of how to keep the peace. J.’s eventual turn to cam work to survive, her use of sex and silence as currency, her longing for escape and refusal to trust it even when it arrives—all of it rings true. This isn’t trauma for drama’s sake. It’s a symphony of survival: dissonant, aching, and real.
What Plum offers is not a clean recovery arc, but something more honest: a portrait of a girl growing into a woman who is still learning how to want, how to trust, how to stay. J. becomes someone who chooses herself, even when it’s messy. Even when it’s lonely. Even when it means burning the last bridges to her past. I hope to be like J.
For those of us raised by rage, by silence, by people who made us responsible for their misery—Plum is a mirror we don’t often get. It reminded me that freedom isn’t always soft or immediate. Sometimes, freedom is a key to a house in your name. Sometimes, it’s walking away. And sometimes, freedom is becoming someone who gets to decide for herself what love looks like. Thank you, Andy, for J.’s fierce story.
📖 Read this if you love: hauntingly lyrical narratives, deep explorations of trauma and survival, and books by Sarah Rose Etter or Carmen Maria Machado.
🔑 Key Themes: Generational Trauma, Parentification and Survival, Addiction and Violence, Reclamation of Self and Autonomy, The Legacy of Abuse.
Content / Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse (severe), Fatphobia (minor), Blood (minor), Alcoholism (moderate), Suicide Attempt (moderate), Medical Content (minor), Violence (severe), Alcohol (minor), Forced Institutionalization (minor), Death (minor), Grief (minor), Emotional Abuse (moderate), Physical Abuse (severe).
Plum by Andy Anderegg is one of the most devastating and precise portrayals of familial abuse I’ve ever read. Written in second-person, it doesn't just tell you a story—it makes you live it. J., the narrator, is a child watching her older brother take the brunt of their father’s violence while she scrambles to stay small, stay good, stay unnoticed. From the very first chapter, I felt myself in her—hypervigilant to the moods of an unstable parent, flinching at every slammed door, learning to read adult faces like they were sacred texts, trained by chaos to anticipate disaster before it speaks.
J.’s voice is sharp, poetic, and eerily detached—like so many of us who learned too early that feeling deeply could be dangerous. Her loyalty to her brother is the backbone of her childhood, and yet even that becomes frayed under the pressure of their parents’ manipulation. She is taught to believe he’s the problem, the defiant one, while their father’s rage simmers just beneath every breakfast table interaction. And as her brother spirals—fighting at school, disappearing, eventually hospitalized—J. internalizes what so many abused daughters do: that survival is earned by being quiet, by being good, by disappearing into herself.
So much of Plum reflects the emotional architecture of my own past. The parentification. The shame. The small betrayals I told myself were love. The prose—lyrical, clipped, and viscerally present—captures the staccato rhythm of trauma: looping thoughts, dissociation, the endless calculations of how to keep the peace. J.’s eventual turn to cam work to survive, her use of sex and silence as currency, her longing for escape and refusal to trust it even when it arrives—all of it rings true. This isn’t trauma for drama’s sake. It’s a symphony of survival: dissonant, aching, and real.
What Plum offers is not a clean recovery arc, but something more honest: a portrait of a girl growing into a woman who is still learning how to want, how to trust, how to stay. J. becomes someone who chooses herself, even when it’s messy. Even when it’s lonely. Even when it means burning the last bridges to her past. I hope to be like J.
For those of us raised by rage, by silence, by people who made us responsible for their misery—Plum is a mirror we don’t often get. It reminded me that freedom isn’t always soft or immediate. Sometimes, freedom is a key to a house in your name. Sometimes, it’s walking away. And sometimes, freedom is becoming someone who gets to decide for herself what love looks like. Thank you, Andy, for J.’s fierce story.
📖 Read this if you love: hauntingly lyrical narratives, deep explorations of trauma and survival, and books by Sarah Rose Etter or Carmen Maria Machado.
🔑 Key Themes: Generational Trauma, Parentification and Survival, Addiction and Violence, Reclamation of Self and Autonomy, The Legacy of Abuse.
Content / Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse (severe), Fatphobia (minor), Blood (minor), Alcoholism (moderate), Suicide Attempt (moderate), Medical Content (minor), Violence (severe), Alcohol (minor), Forced Institutionalization (minor), Death (minor), Grief (minor), Emotional Abuse (moderate), Physical Abuse (severe).
May 28, 2025
- You wish to never see a plum again in your life… You When I am an adult, I will never have a fruit tree. I will never be like this.
- Of course, you cannot afford to be found out, but you do not think that far ahead. You know there will be consequences, and maybe that is the point.
- The rule in your family is don't mess up. If you have to mess up, it should be in a new way, one you could not anticipate. If it's a way you could have anticipated, it is your fault and you will get the consequences. After all, you did know better.
- You can cry at night but not during the day. Not when there could be another person who could hear you.
- You think it's a miracle that headphones even exist, that there is a way you cannot her the worlkd you're in, that you can hide yourself away, that they cannot know
about it. That you will be safe in your room for some time.
- You're going to get out, the way a shooting star is getting out: meant to go, not meant to stay there stuck forever with no hopes. This is your nature. This is who you are and who cannot be destroyed or told to shut up.
- You have no idea what it would be like to be twins, but you know what it's like to be his little sister. It is like you are hiking on a muddy precarious trail and you put your feet in his boot prints.
- You do not have to think maybe I am not safe here maybe these grownups shouldn't be allowed to have kids.
- You are here today, trying to get from bed to school, where you ill be safe in a way, for at least 6 hours.
- You turn your insides cold and remind yourself what happens in your house does not happen to you - it happens to someone else, some other family, not yours.
- Dad even at his maddest can get more mad.
- The police are easy to fool. They do not have long here. They are not looking for a family like this one, blond har and big blue eyes, the girl in a ruffle pink apron baking box-mix muffins. They are not looking for two parents they can count, wearing shirts with all the buttons done up, wearing glasses, holding magazines. A normal people family. And that is why you are this family tonight.
- You are glad he is going out because things are calm, as if the sky lost its ability to could.
- A problem is something you can no longer ignore. A problem is something that fills a room.
- The days move one at a time, one meal at a time, with only little pockets on aloneness for you to fund and enjoy.
- You do not know this yet, but you are raising you.
- You love the feeling of knowing again that youa re the only person you can rely on. It's a good and horrible feeling.
- You go two years without talking, then six. It is easier now not to call or talk. Who would want to hear how long it's been and why can't you call more?
- You believe you have made it through. If you are playing this back, you have come a great distance. You should feel proud of yourself. Do not hate yourself for surviving.
- You have one brother and you have no brothers. You have two parents and you have no parents. You've done so much your whole life.
- You can do anything for another 10 seconds.
- You think you could be a better nicer person on a plane to Tahiti.
- You buy yourself balloons on Mother's Day. You mother yourself,. You deserve this.
- Of course, you cannot afford to be found out, but you do not think that far ahead. You know there will be consequences, and maybe that is the point.
- The rule in your family is don't mess up. If you have to mess up, it should be in a new way, one you could not anticipate. If it's a way you could have anticipated, it is your fault and you will get the consequences. After all, you did know better.
- You can cry at night but not during the day. Not when there could be another person who could hear you.
- You think it's a miracle that headphones even exist, that there is a way you cannot her the worlkd you're in, that you can hide yourself away, that they cannot know
about it. That you will be safe in your room for some time.
- You're going to get out, the way a shooting star is getting out: meant to go, not meant to stay there stuck forever with no hopes. This is your nature. This is who you are and who cannot be destroyed or told to shut up.
- You have no idea what it would be like to be twins, but you know what it's like to be his little sister. It is like you are hiking on a muddy precarious trail and you put your feet in his boot prints.
- You do not have to think maybe I am not safe here maybe these grownups shouldn't be allowed to have kids.
- You are here today, trying to get from bed to school, where you ill be safe in a way, for at least 6 hours.
- You turn your insides cold and remind yourself what happens in your house does not happen to you - it happens to someone else, some other family, not yours.
- Dad even at his maddest can get more mad.
- The police are easy to fool. They do not have long here. They are not looking for a family like this one, blond har and big blue eyes, the girl in a ruffle pink apron baking box-mix muffins. They are not looking for two parents they can count, wearing shirts with all the buttons done up, wearing glasses, holding magazines. A normal people family. And that is why you are this family tonight.
- You are glad he is going out because things are calm, as if the sky lost its ability to could.
- A problem is something you can no longer ignore. A problem is something that fills a room.
- The days move one at a time, one meal at a time, with only little pockets on aloneness for you to fund and enjoy.
- You do not know this yet, but you are raising you.
- You love the feeling of knowing again that youa re the only person you can rely on. It's a good and horrible feeling.
- You go two years without talking, then six. It is easier now not to call or talk. Who would want to hear how long it's been and why can't you call more?
- You believe you have made it through. If you are playing this back, you have come a great distance. You should feel proud of yourself. Do not hate yourself for surviving.
- You have one brother and you have no brothers. You have two parents and you have no parents. You've done so much your whole life.
- You can do anything for another 10 seconds.
- You think you could be a better nicer person on a plane to Tahiti.
- You buy yourself balloons on Mother's Day. You mother yourself,. You deserve this.
December 25, 2025
Second childhood trauma book I’m reading back to backkkkk idk why I did that! Plum takes on the story of a young woman growing up in an abusive household with an alcoholic father, depressed/absent mother, and a beaten brother - it’s intense and upsetting. The book is written in second person which artistically makes a lot of sense. This point of view allowed the reader to feel like the character was recounting an out of body experience that she herself can’t even get too close to. I think it made for a more challenging and less personal read but I’m willing to rise to the challenge and overlook personal preference when the decision clearly makes more sense. About 30/40 percent into the book I got a little fatigued by the content and the feeling that it had stalled/become repetitive but just as I started to feel that, the story shifted and the main characters life moved forward into the after, if you can call it that, and examined the wounds that remain and impact her everyday life. This one is definitely a bummer but an enlightening read into the psyche of a child of abuse, its impact, and their survival.
July 5, 2025
Emotionally abused child grows into an adult with a ton of damage to work through. Told in the second person, which was interesting and worked. Instead of pulling me in more to the character, here it seemed more as a device to establish distance. 'These awful things are happening to you, someone else, not to me.' There are parts that didn't work as well, and there is a reveal in the last 15 pages answering a question I had the whole book, that took me right out of it.
Could be a day read for some people. It reads very quickly. For me, I read it at about a quarter at a time over the course of a month, because it was weighty and frustrating in a way that made sense. Not what I'd call a pleasant read, but solid nonetheless.
Could be a day read for some people. It reads very quickly. For me, I read it at about a quarter at a time over the course of a month, because it was weighty and frustrating in a way that made sense. Not what I'd call a pleasant read, but solid nonetheless.
October 30, 2025
I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I couldn't figure out why it took me so long to read. It's a very short book. I loved it because I could relate, as it reminded me of my own childhood. I hate it because I could relate, and it reminded me of my own childhood. It was hard to read. Reliving parts of my own past. I understood completely, I just kept wanting to savor this book, soak up every word. Not a 5 star bc it got slow in places and I was already having a hard time reading it. Beautifully written.
July 5, 2025
A little dark for beach reading but good. I kinda liked the second person narrative.
“In the morning, as you shampoo your hair, you tell yourself now the true story of yourself so you will believe it, so you will hear how it is: violent and not OK and not your fault and not your brother’s fault and also against the law and not OK. You hope you will get better at telling it. You will probably get better at it, you are pretty sure.”
“In the morning, as you shampoo your hair, you tell yourself now the true story of yourself so you will believe it, so you will hear how it is: violent and not OK and not your fault and not your brother’s fault and also against the law and not OK. You hope you will get better at telling it. You will probably get better at it, you are pretty sure.”
April 10, 2025
A rollercoaster of emotions from the very first pages. I laughed with J, cried with her, spiraled with her. It’s raw, poetic, and made me feel seen in a way I didn’t expect. The writing is sharp, the structure is brilliant, and the emotional impact is a total gut punch - in the most healing way. Read it. Seriously. Thank me later.
July 8, 2025
This book was hard to read but absolutely beautifully written. The second person format was different than anything I've read before but worked perfectly. It was raw and tender and full of emotion, and the writing seemed to evolve and mature throughout the book as the narrator grew up. Anderegg pulled this off stunningly. 4.75 stars.
August 4, 2025
ouchie.
plum is a book about abuse and childhood and growing up and becoming a person. it's sad and written like a million poems with run on sentences and big font. it's third person view separates you from fully seeing the main character and forcing yourself into their place.
it's a good read but it doesn't make it easy to read such things.
plum is a book about abuse and childhood and growing up and becoming a person. it's sad and written like a million poems with run on sentences and big font. it's third person view separates you from fully seeing the main character and forcing yourself into their place.
it's a good read but it doesn't make it easy to read such things.
April 21, 2025
This is the type of book that stays with you. I’ll think of J and her story often. She is such a real, human character, and the 2nd person POV really puts you right there with her. I also think (hope!) this book will find the people that need it most. Would underline every word.
July 28, 2025
this book made me want to cry. such a well written portrayal of what it’s like growing up in an abusive family, and the choices you’re forced to make for the rest of your life as a result. beautifully written. loved the second person narrative as well.
Read
September 2, 2025This book read like a meditation on trauma. Trauma from child abuse. And how children, without love and stability, will grow into fractured adults. It’s inevitable. This is the type of book I used to read as a young adult and made my compassion for others grow deeper. I read it in a day.
October 9, 2025
One of the few books I can think of where the pacing just abruptly shifts. I liked so much of this, best of all how close I felt to a character so intent on distancing herself from herself, but I think we lose a lot in the rocket-speed last third.
April 15, 2025
(4.75/5⭐, rounded up)
RTC!
Thank you bunches to Andy Anderegg & Hub City Press for the gifted final copy of this beautiful debut!
RTC!
Thank you bunches to Andy Anderegg & Hub City Press for the gifted final copy of this beautiful debut!
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