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Dwelling
A dazzling, surrealist fairy tale of a young woman's quest for house and home—from New York to the Texas hinterlands and, maybe, back again.
The world is ending. It has been ending for some time. When did the ending begin? Perhaps when Evie’s mother died, or when her father died soon after. Perhaps when her sister, Elena, was forcibly institutionalized in a psychiatric hippie commune in Colorado. Certainly at some point over the last year, as New York City spun down the tubes, as bedbugs and vultures descended, as apartments crumbled to the ground and no one had the time or money to fight it, or even, really, to notice.
And then, one day, the ending is complete. Every renter is evicted en masse, leaving only the landlords and owners—the demented, the aristocratic, the luckiest few. Evie—parentless, sisterless, basically friendless, underemployed—has nothing and no one. Except, she remembers, a second cousin in Texas, in a strange town called Gulluck, where nothing is as it seems.
And so, in the surreal, dislodged landscape, beyond the known world, a place of albino cicadas and gardeners and thieves, of cobblers and shoemakers and one very large fish, a place governed by mysterious logic and perhaps even miracles, Evie sets out in search of a home.
A wry and buoyant fairy tale set at the apex of the housing crisis, Emily Hunt Kivel’s Dwelling takes us on a hapless hero’s journey to the end of the world and back again. Madcap and magical, hilarious and existential, Dwelling holds a funhouse mirror to our moment—for anyone in search of space, belonging, and some semblance of justice.
The world is ending. It has been ending for some time. When did the ending begin? Perhaps when Evie’s mother died, or when her father died soon after. Perhaps when her sister, Elena, was forcibly institutionalized in a psychiatric hippie commune in Colorado. Certainly at some point over the last year, as New York City spun down the tubes, as bedbugs and vultures descended, as apartments crumbled to the ground and no one had the time or money to fight it, or even, really, to notice.
And then, one day, the ending is complete. Every renter is evicted en masse, leaving only the landlords and owners—the demented, the aristocratic, the luckiest few. Evie—parentless, sisterless, basically friendless, underemployed—has nothing and no one. Except, she remembers, a second cousin in Texas, in a strange town called Gulluck, where nothing is as it seems.
And so, in the surreal, dislodged landscape, beyond the known world, a place of albino cicadas and gardeners and thieves, of cobblers and shoemakers and one very large fish, a place governed by mysterious logic and perhaps even miracles, Evie sets out in search of a home.
A wry and buoyant fairy tale set at the apex of the housing crisis, Emily Hunt Kivel’s Dwelling takes us on a hapless hero’s journey to the end of the world and back again. Madcap and magical, hilarious and existential, Dwelling holds a funhouse mirror to our moment—for anyone in search of space, belonging, and some semblance of justice.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published August 5, 2025
74 people are currently reading
8905 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews
April 17, 2025
The dreaded two star review. Not bad enough to hate but for me that’s a strike against it because this novel is so blandly written I don’t have the will to hate it. There might be a good story here but the writing was so flat and uninspired that i began to think about the sentences themselves, often so empty of meaning, and to wonder why these sentences were there for me to read, filling my head with the blandest sort of processed-food images, instead of being edited to mean something precise and thoughtful, or excised as nonessential beats and unnecessary fillers of pages. I don’t mind plain writing but I do mind when characters are treated like puppets to be moved about on strings. The lack of musicality and precision was striking.
September 16, 2025
“...it had all led up to this exact moment, this tragicomic climax.”
If writers Margaret Atwood and Scarlett Thomas had a love child, the pooled ink may result in Emily Hunt Kivel. Endling author Maria Reva (currently on Booker longlist, soon to be on Booker shortlist!) strikes me as Kivel’s literary sister. Not in content, but in voice, in alacrity. The female protagonists in Dwelling and Endling are both spunky, spiky, and graciously wily. Kivel’s novel was not on my radar, perhaps it didn’t get a lot of PR prior to release. A sleeper, a keeper, it deserves a prime place on every shelf.
I didn’t know until I finished the book that this big-hearted, robustly talented author lives about 15 miles from me. Her creation of Evie Cavallo is heart-stopping (Evie’s heart will never stop). Evie will be forever one of my front-runner fictional characters. No clichés, not one, in this novel.
The end of the world is coming. New York has closed housing on renters, and especially the worker bees who struggle to maintain an affordable life. It’s spreading to other places, other spaces. The apocalypse is presented matter-of-factly because it happened on the down low—they call it “Revitalization.” A way to give tax cuts to landlords to put their tenants on the street and let vacation rentals take over the city’s dwellings.
It’s not like oceans roar and icebergs melt and the hot sun burns our flesh to a crisp. The apocalypse has happened gradually, a cunning, created housing crisis by corrupt officials. Most people were too busy working, or working two or more jobs, to notice how all the foundations have crumbled and the bedbugs have invaded and the unhoused of the world has tripled.
That’s the tragicomic climax, a pivotal scene, but it happens on page one. That’s the genesis of this story. It doesn’t unfold in platitudes or pithy scenes of tender destruction, How does Evie, an unenthusiastic graphic designer (dealing mostly in fonts), our situationally challenged protagonist, go forward and survive?
The climax is Evie realizing her self, a self-awareness that Brooklyn isn’t everything, that she is part of something bigger than the little world she adapted to. Going forward, can Evie create instead of habituate? Up until now, she has conformed to mundanities. But her life is about to confront the most absurd realities.
Her sister, Elena, has been institutionalized for decades in a hippie commune mental facility somewhere in Colorado. Requirements for Evie to face what’s ahead are colossal, a planetary-sized demand that she has never encountered, even in her soon-to-be burgeoning imagination. Changing every facet of her life is not generally her jam. Evie didn’t have a north star, no lodestar. What she did possess was tenacity.
Evie made her way to (the fictional town of) Gulluck, Texas, a hot, perspiring, mystic town. “Gulluck is a secret. No one really comes to live here except the people who already do. No one really knows about it except the people who already know.” This is where I will point out the cover. The phenomenal cover of the book, which carries the theme. Shoes.
If you think I’m meandering, I’m not. Exactly. We don’t sit in resignation in this story. Evie’s problems are not the theme. What happens is that this 29 year-old ambushed woman is placed in unique situations, and then she has to figure her way out. Or in. Her cousin is a realtor, finds her a dwelling in Gulluck, and this house becomes the seed of her aspirations. She finds love with Bertie, a locksmith, the kind of man deserving of love. He is just about as unforgettable as Evie. He also will do anything to help Evie rescue her sister. Bertie supports her in any endeavor. You want a Bertie in your life.
Now, I’ve written all this and I haven’t even gotten to the fairytale part. How did Kivel combine fairytale themes and contemporary reality, magical realism and emotional depth---and yet, despite it dripping in the phantasmagorical, it feels like concrete reality. Whimsical and thoughtful, and sincere, simultaneously. Corporeal and magical. All this and more.
You may as well tell me it is the true story of Alice in Wonderland or Dot in Oz. It’s all casually dropped in as if these elements were always there for Evie to discover, and the reader, too. It’s so down to earth that readers can touch grass, even while in a house that looks like a shoe, or at a buffet with immortal diners.
Side note: I’ve had so much drama in my life since I started this book (it feels like eons ago) that it is difficult to write a review without a TMI. I fell and fractured my hip and then had a post-surgical delirium. I’m back on my feet, a bit wobbly at times (could use the perfect shoe). Evie was in my head, all through my fall and confusion, and now back safe and sound with my Bertie (that’s not his name, but he IS like a Bertie). Trying to eke out this review without boring myself and my Goodreads friends. So, just saying, this book may have helped save my life. All you readers out there, you know about that. Books save lives. :)
If writers Margaret Atwood and Scarlett Thomas had a love child, the pooled ink may result in Emily Hunt Kivel. Endling author Maria Reva (currently on Booker longlist, soon to be on Booker shortlist!) strikes me as Kivel’s literary sister. Not in content, but in voice, in alacrity. The female protagonists in Dwelling and Endling are both spunky, spiky, and graciously wily. Kivel’s novel was not on my radar, perhaps it didn’t get a lot of PR prior to release. A sleeper, a keeper, it deserves a prime place on every shelf.
I didn’t know until I finished the book that this big-hearted, robustly talented author lives about 15 miles from me. Her creation of Evie Cavallo is heart-stopping (Evie’s heart will never stop). Evie will be forever one of my front-runner fictional characters. No clichés, not one, in this novel.
The end of the world is coming. New York has closed housing on renters, and especially the worker bees who struggle to maintain an affordable life. It’s spreading to other places, other spaces. The apocalypse is presented matter-of-factly because it happened on the down low—they call it “Revitalization.” A way to give tax cuts to landlords to put their tenants on the street and let vacation rentals take over the city’s dwellings.
It’s not like oceans roar and icebergs melt and the hot sun burns our flesh to a crisp. The apocalypse has happened gradually, a cunning, created housing crisis by corrupt officials. Most people were too busy working, or working two or more jobs, to notice how all the foundations have crumbled and the bedbugs have invaded and the unhoused of the world has tripled.
That’s the tragicomic climax, a pivotal scene, but it happens on page one. That’s the genesis of this story. It doesn’t unfold in platitudes or pithy scenes of tender destruction, How does Evie, an unenthusiastic graphic designer (dealing mostly in fonts), our situationally challenged protagonist, go forward and survive?
The climax is Evie realizing her self, a self-awareness that Brooklyn isn’t everything, that she is part of something bigger than the little world she adapted to. Going forward, can Evie create instead of habituate? Up until now, she has conformed to mundanities. But her life is about to confront the most absurd realities.
Her sister, Elena, has been institutionalized for decades in a hippie commune mental facility somewhere in Colorado. Requirements for Evie to face what’s ahead are colossal, a planetary-sized demand that she has never encountered, even in her soon-to-be burgeoning imagination. Changing every facet of her life is not generally her jam. Evie didn’t have a north star, no lodestar. What she did possess was tenacity.
Evie made her way to (the fictional town of) Gulluck, Texas, a hot, perspiring, mystic town. “Gulluck is a secret. No one really comes to live here except the people who already do. No one really knows about it except the people who already know.” This is where I will point out the cover. The phenomenal cover of the book, which carries the theme. Shoes.
If you think I’m meandering, I’m not. Exactly. We don’t sit in resignation in this story. Evie’s problems are not the theme. What happens is that this 29 year-old ambushed woman is placed in unique situations, and then she has to figure her way out. Or in. Her cousin is a realtor, finds her a dwelling in Gulluck, and this house becomes the seed of her aspirations. She finds love with Bertie, a locksmith, the kind of man deserving of love. He is just about as unforgettable as Evie. He also will do anything to help Evie rescue her sister. Bertie supports her in any endeavor. You want a Bertie in your life.
Now, I’ve written all this and I haven’t even gotten to the fairytale part. How did Kivel combine fairytale themes and contemporary reality, magical realism and emotional depth---and yet, despite it dripping in the phantasmagorical, it feels like concrete reality. Whimsical and thoughtful, and sincere, simultaneously. Corporeal and magical. All this and more.
You may as well tell me it is the true story of Alice in Wonderland or Dot in Oz. It’s all casually dropped in as if these elements were always there for Evie to discover, and the reader, too. It’s so down to earth that readers can touch grass, even while in a house that looks like a shoe, or at a buffet with immortal diners.
Side note: I’ve had so much drama in my life since I started this book (it feels like eons ago) that it is difficult to write a review without a TMI. I fell and fractured my hip and then had a post-surgical delirium. I’m back on my feet, a bit wobbly at times (could use the perfect shoe). Evie was in my head, all through my fall and confusion, and now back safe and sound with my Bertie (that’s not his name, but he IS like a Bertie). Trying to eke out this review without boring myself and my Goodreads friends. So, just saying, this book may have helped save my life. All you readers out there, you know about that. Books save lives. :)
September 5, 2025
Absolutely marvelous, complex, and among the best of the year! Surrealism and magical realism pair quite well together.
My heartfelt gratitude to the author and Libro.fm for early access to the audio for review.
I anticipate revisiting this story to revel more deeply into so many brilliant elements. Community, found family, learning survival from wild creatures, and more.
Endure the popup ads for a fine, brief interview:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment...
Perhaps this will illuminate further, I'll need to gain access:
https://www.newyorker.com/a-brooklyn-...
My heartfelt gratitude to the author and Libro.fm for early access to the audio for review.
I anticipate revisiting this story to revel more deeply into so many brilliant elements. Community, found family, learning survival from wild creatures, and more.
Endure the popup ads for a fine, brief interview:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment...
Perhaps this will illuminate further, I'll need to gain access:
https://www.newyorker.com/a-brooklyn-...
books-i-remember-dnfing
September 25, 2025Housing crisis really could bring out the modern apocalypse.
August 11, 2025
4.5. This was just shy of perfect for me. The vibrancy of the language and the untethered imagination of Kivel’s debut novel are rare, and the future of whimsy is safe in her hands. “Mystery cannot be coerced,” but it can be lovingly crafted into something as beautiful as… a shoe.
February 6, 2025
I think if I had known to expect a fairy tale retelling against the backdrop of the housing crisis, I would not necessarily have been disappointed.
Evie, a graphic designer and an orphan whose sister is in a cult-like mental institution, is evicted from her apartment in New York City amid the housing crisis. For over half the novel it strikes an absolutely near-future or dystopian tone with no speculative elements or folk tale hints. Evie, who can work remotely, finds her only other relative, a second cousin in Gullick, Texas, who's a realtor. She throws herself at her feet for a rescue. Renters have also been shut out of the market in this very weird small town with lots of secrets.
Out of options, Evie finds herself living in a shoe, where she keeps getting approached by people requesting cobbling services. From here it is just a Mother Goose retelling. She is forced out of her job and decides to learn shoemaking, which she has a supernatural talent for. She then joins a secret order of shoemakers who turn out to be immortal. It's there that the book lost me.
The tone of the last half of the book was then so whimsical that it felt at odds with the tone of the first half. I am kind of over fairy tale retellings so maybe people who love them will find lots to appreciate here.
I thought this was going to be houseless orphan moves to a fairy tale inspired town and meets a whimsical found family where she finds belonging, but it went from dark and bleak to cozy and fantastical so often that I found it disorienting. The whimsical tone at the end almost downplayed the central message of the housing crisis theme in a way I found off-putting.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Evie, a graphic designer and an orphan whose sister is in a cult-like mental institution, is evicted from her apartment in New York City amid the housing crisis. For over half the novel it strikes an absolutely near-future or dystopian tone with no speculative elements or folk tale hints. Evie, who can work remotely, finds her only other relative, a second cousin in Gullick, Texas, who's a realtor. She throws herself at her feet for a rescue. Renters have also been shut out of the market in this very weird small town with lots of secrets.
Out of options, Evie finds herself living in a shoe, where she keeps getting approached by people requesting cobbling services. From here it is just a Mother Goose retelling. She is forced out of her job and decides to learn shoemaking, which she has a supernatural talent for. She then joins a secret order of shoemakers who turn out to be immortal. It's there that the book lost me.
The tone of the last half of the book was then so whimsical that it felt at odds with the tone of the first half. I am kind of over fairy tale retellings so maybe people who love them will find lots to appreciate here.
I thought this was going to be houseless orphan moves to a fairy tale inspired town and meets a whimsical found family where she finds belonging, but it went from dark and bleak to cozy and fantastical so often that I found it disorienting. The whimsical tone at the end almost downplayed the central message of the housing crisis theme in a way I found off-putting.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Read
September 12, 2025Far to whimsical and goofy for me personally - dnf
July 2, 2025
A surreal fairy-tale retelling set against the backdrop of the American housing crisis is a bold new idea... unfortunately this doesn't stick the landing and I'm left feeling a little confused but mostly disappointed.
Dwelling follows Evie after she is evicted from her apartment in New York City and goes searching for a distant cousin in Texas to live with as she tries to get back on her feet. Around her the economy as we know it begins to crumble as people struggle to find well-paying stable jobs as well as permanent housing.
A surreal take on the housing crisis? Yeah I was signed up for that, but I felt as though the book didn't deliver that. The first half of this I thought had a lot of potential. The bleak nature juxtapose with this over-the-top take on the housing crisis was interesting.
The second half of this completely lost me. The whimsical, non-sensical, nature of the story tonally clashes with the first half and makes the messaging of the first feel completely obsolete. It felt like I suddenly picked up a new book and I found myself bored and wanting it to end. The parts don't blend together whatsoever. This would've been better if it was but no joke Evie buys a shoe to live in and then goes on a magical prophecy journey that mirrors a story a secret society of cobblers told her. It feels like all of the set-up in the first half of this story was for nothing.
I'll also disclose that I probably wouldn't have finished this if I didn't have the audiobook.
*Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an ARC copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own*
Dwelling follows Evie after she is evicted from her apartment in New York City and goes searching for a distant cousin in Texas to live with as she tries to get back on her feet. Around her the economy as we know it begins to crumble as people struggle to find well-paying stable jobs as well as permanent housing.
A surreal take on the housing crisis? Yeah I was signed up for that, but I felt as though the book didn't deliver that. The first half of this I thought had a lot of potential. The bleak nature juxtapose with this over-the-top take on the housing crisis was interesting.
The second half of this completely lost me. The whimsical, non-sensical, nature of the story tonally clashes with the first half and makes the messaging of the first feel completely obsolete. It felt like I suddenly picked up a new book and I found myself bored and wanting it to end. The parts don't blend together whatsoever. This would've been better if it was but no joke Evie buys a shoe to live in and then goes on a magical prophecy journey that mirrors a story a secret society of cobblers told her. It feels like all of the set-up in the first half of this story was for nothing.
I'll also disclose that I probably wouldn't have finished this if I didn't have the audiobook.
*Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an ARC copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own*
August 18, 2025
Okay I loved her!! Whimsy, sisterhood, shoes, a prophecy. Dwelling was delightful! Starting out in a dystopian (but not hard to imagine) situation where all of the renters in NYC are pushed out - our narrator Evie moves to north west Texas to find solace with a distant relative. Through a unique and strange journey she becomes a shoe maker - and a very talented one at that. I’d love to uncover a surprise skill / prophecy soon or honestly not even that soon but at some point. I could’ve read more and more about Evie making shoes! Really interesting and cool. A perfect book for me!
July 20, 2025
Was this a fever dream?! A shroom trip!? Lead poisoning!? Either way I don’t care. What I thought was going to be a not so unrealistic dystopian-ish future took some weird turns. We live in shoes now? We talk to lions now? What is happening!? I was kind of just along for the ride in listening to this book. It was entertaining and interesting enough but I’m at a loss. I don’t understand. Someone smarter than me might be able to purse through the literary trip I just took. The narrator was good, a bit monotone and led my way to a nap at least once. Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to review!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2025
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. This is a wonderful adult fairy tale that never moves completely out of our world. It starts when the mayor, in order to clean up NYC, evicts everyone who is renting an apartment. The city is in chaos, with people sitting hopeless in the street on their furniture. This leaves Evie homeless. She remembers a very distant relative in a small town in Texas and sets out to see if she’ll take her in. And the delights keep coming, including moving into a small house that’s in the shape of a shoe and then training to become a shoemaker and then joining a shoemaking fraternity, where she may be the chosen one that they’ve been waiting for for almost a hundred years. Not to mention having to try and free her sister from an asylum, with help from her new boyfriend who can make any key, as long as he knows the door’s history. Such a fun first novel.
November 16, 2025
A book that should have all lined up for me, that realism slowly turned fairy tale—but man. The prose here was too relentlessly grayscale for the book to come through. I hate I feel this way, because I didn’t hate the book… The story had promise but really needed some magic in the language to get it off the ground.
February 15, 2025
A miraculous work of literature…an embodiment of every oddball’s reality in this modern world. I feel a kinship with Evie, with Bertie, with Noah, with Andrew, with every longing and yearning character illustrated in this book.
I found multiple passages worthy of being shared far and wide…which doesn’t really happen when I read books. I read many.
This read is going to be a big one that rings true for many lovers of magical realism, critics of today’s economic failings, worries hesitant about tomorrow’s uncertain future, storytellers looking for the next modern (not so short) fable. But also to the hopeful hearts, who never close their minds to the possibilities of dreaming.
Thank you #NetGalley for this ARC. I am in awe.
I found multiple passages worthy of being shared far and wide…which doesn’t really happen when I read books. I read many.
This read is going to be a big one that rings true for many lovers of magical realism, critics of today’s economic failings, worries hesitant about tomorrow’s uncertain future, storytellers looking for the next modern (not so short) fable. But also to the hopeful hearts, who never close their minds to the possibilities of dreaming.
Thank you #NetGalley for this ARC. I am in awe.
Read
February 5, 2025I'm sure there were countless intertexts that escaped me, as I'm not much of a fairy tale or folk tale reader (though I did want to be an ethnologist when I was growing up). Nevertheless, the main question that bothered me as I read the book was what kind of (literary) form is appropriate to describe and respond to the disaster/catastrophe/apocalypse that is late capitalism. Kivel says it's the folktale, and perhaps she's right in that it's a popular form. People against capitalism? Sure, but how exactly?
July 15, 2025
Wow. I don’t know what I expected when I started this, but it was not this. This book was so weird in the best way.
The description calls it a fairytale, which it is in the sense that the MC experiences extreme adversity, has to go on an impossible adventure, and learns new things about themselves along the way. BUT it has a sprinkle of dystopian that also felt like it could happen tomorrow.
The setting is NYC and the world is for the owners, aka everyone who rents is now homeless. The former tenants are scattering - clinging to any hope they have of a place to live. And I think it calls into question what a home means and highlights what so many of us are looking for - stability, family, and belonging.
I loved this. For concept alone I gave it five stars.
Thank you NetGalley for an Advanced Listener copy in exchange for an honest review.
The description calls it a fairytale, which it is in the sense that the MC experiences extreme adversity, has to go on an impossible adventure, and learns new things about themselves along the way. BUT it has a sprinkle of dystopian that also felt like it could happen tomorrow.
The setting is NYC and the world is for the owners, aka everyone who rents is now homeless. The former tenants are scattering - clinging to any hope they have of a place to live. And I think it calls into question what a home means and highlights what so many of us are looking for - stability, family, and belonging.
I loved this. For concept alone I gave it five stars.
Thank you NetGalley for an Advanced Listener copy in exchange for an honest review.
January 27, 2025
i loved this book so much! it is a wildly imaginative story set in a world that’s literally falling apart. Evie, left alone after losing her family and everything else, escapes a crumbling New York City to a strange Texas town called Gulluck. there amidst albino cicadas, quirky townsfolk, and even a giant fish, she begins a surreal search for belonging and meaning. the story feels like a mashup of fairy tale weirdness and sharp social commentary. it tackles big themes like the housing crisis and personal loss but does it with humor and a magical, offbeat vibe. the setting was so bizarre yet oddly relatable, and Evie’s journey is packed with existential questions and unexpected moments of hope.
If you’re into stories that blend real-world struggles with a dose of the absurd, Dwelling is worth checking out. it's fresh, funny, and hits hard in all the right ways. ❤️✨
thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux for my copy!
If you’re into stories that blend real-world struggles with a dose of the absurd, Dwelling is worth checking out. it's fresh, funny, and hits hard in all the right ways. ❤️✨
thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux for my copy!
February 2, 2025
Thanks to the publishers - Farrar, Straus and Giroux – for giving me access to this book as an E-ARC via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
This was a journey and a “fun” (in a black comedy sort of way) social commentary of the current world and the socioeconomic divides, I’d say. Main character, Evie, is a renter in the city and is evicted where only the 1% can still afford to live because they own their properties. She must find a home elsewhere and leaves for Texas.
I enjoyed the commentary bit. Very gallows humor which I enjoyed.
This was a journey and a “fun” (in a black comedy sort of way) social commentary of the current world and the socioeconomic divides, I’d say. Main character, Evie, is a renter in the city and is evicted where only the 1% can still afford to live because they own their properties. She must find a home elsewhere and leaves for Texas.
I enjoyed the commentary bit. Very gallows humor which I enjoyed.
February 9, 2025
This is a beautiful fabulist feat! This small odyssey of a book refuses to be what you expect it to be throughout, and yet I ended up exactly where I hoped by the end. Evie is such an interesting iteration of the archetypal hero and the book’s villains are sinister yet strangely, disarmingly lovable. Hunt Kivel’s writing is vivid, whip smart, and simply leaps off the page.
July 10, 2025
A cool idea that wasn’t really delivered.
July 13, 2025
Evie’s landlord evicts her from her home in The City, and she relocates to Gulluck, TX because few options to live close to family exist. She and her sister, Elena, lose their mom to ovarian cancer and their dad to heartbreak and nutrient deficiency. The trauma from their deaths causes Elena’s hallucinations and violent behavior; as a threat to herself and others, they move her into a New Age facility in Colorado for patients requiring treatment for their mental health. As such, when Evie can’t make rent, she hopes her distant Aunt Terry and their family in Texas will provide a temporary living situation. Terry works as a real estate agent and, with limited options, convinces Evie to rent a shoe-shaped house in Gulluck, a town where magical realism comes to life (e.g., the shape-shifting fish under wraps). With a shortage of work projects, Evie quits her remote marketing job and embraces her endowed fate brought by her house; as a transplant, she forms her life to fit her home’s story and learns to design and make shoes. Her shoemaking course instructor notices Evie’s natural penchant for constructing footwear and inducts her into a secret “league of immortal shoemakers.” With the help of her boyfriend, Bertie the Keymaker, who crafts a skeleton key, Evie plans to break Elena out of the inpatient facility because of their sudden suspicious shift to emulate a cultish commune. Together, the women trek to New York to retrieve their family’s locked-up belongings and return to Gulluck, their newfound haven.
Pulling from different folk stories involving living in a shoe for a house and shaping keys based on the story of the door, Kivel’s debut begins squarely in the fiction genre and layers in magical realism in part 2 and a quest in part 3. In other words, Kivel’s critique of the housing market in America jumps off of the page in the initial part of Dwelling; later, Kivel shifts to using aphorisms and poetic lore in her assessment of one’s place of residence and resiliently rebuilding a home despite its destruction. Some of the metaphors or themes are lost to me, such as the Gulluck’s secret fish, the undying shoemakers, and Elena’s mental health. Still, I appreciate the author’s folding in of different genres. If one can suspend their belief of reality and embrace the fantastical that leaves questions unanswered, Dwelling can help expand the imagination.
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC.
Pulling from different folk stories involving living in a shoe for a house and shaping keys based on the story of the door, Kivel’s debut begins squarely in the fiction genre and layers in magical realism in part 2 and a quest in part 3. In other words, Kivel’s critique of the housing market in America jumps off of the page in the initial part of Dwelling; later, Kivel shifts to using aphorisms and poetic lore in her assessment of one’s place of residence and resiliently rebuilding a home despite its destruction. Some of the metaphors or themes are lost to me, such as the Gulluck’s secret fish, the undying shoemakers, and Elena’s mental health. Still, I appreciate the author’s folding in of different genres. If one can suspend their belief of reality and embrace the fantastical that leaves questions unanswered, Dwelling can help expand the imagination.
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC.
November 17, 2025
I enjoyed this book, it was surprising and I didn’t know where it was going or how it would get there. As I read I wondered if I was missing a theme or allegory that the author was trying to convey but I wasn’t getting. There’s a quest, a legendary creature and three main characters whose first name all begin with E, as does the author.
September 26, 2025
I take this book as a smear piece against landlords and Airbnb, and as a sign to buy the shoes.
February 16, 2025
Evie lives in New York, doing her “not a job” job and plodding through an uneventful life. Her general disengagement means that she is one of the many thousands, if not millions, affected when the mayor decrees mandatory evictions for all who rent their homes and premises. Some few saw the signs and made plans for this day, but the majority find themselves out on the street with their belongings.
With potential sanctuary from a rumoured distant relative in far away Texas, Evie - cultivating new bold habits for a new bold life - has to take her life seriously for a change, making plans to recover all her property from storage, rescue her sister from a draconian ‘care’ facility, and assure their futures.
This was a pleasure to read. I’ve seen it described as surreal but, while there’s undeniably a rich fairytale quality to it, I found it to be more hyperreal - taking the minutiae of socio-political conventions and exaggerating them beyond satire until they buckle like reflections in a fun house mirror but retain their definition. After a flying start the book seemed on the brink of that most hateful of things, wackiness (helicopters, dogs) but it tottered back, didn’t fall, and soon resumed and maintained until the end its warm, clever, and deadpan grasp of the situation.
I know comparisons can be odious, but what we’re getting here is that precise atomisation that filmmakers like Wes Anderson/Coen Brothers/Miranda July bring to cinema - amplifying specifics and minutiae, creating a believable distortion of reality which stops short of grotesquery and which delivers, in its wit and perspicacity, impactful emotional jabs.
Kivel has a lot of fun with her prose, it’s airy, warm and funny, and the characters each have their own distinct voice, which is more rare than you might think in a busy book like this. Evie is a thoroughly engaging protagonist - more resilient, capable, and daring than she ever let herself believe - and her growth is as rewarding for us as it becomes for her.
A real treat of a book.
My thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for this book which I requested.
With potential sanctuary from a rumoured distant relative in far away Texas, Evie - cultivating new bold habits for a new bold life - has to take her life seriously for a change, making plans to recover all her property from storage, rescue her sister from a draconian ‘care’ facility, and assure their futures.
This was a pleasure to read. I’ve seen it described as surreal but, while there’s undeniably a rich fairytale quality to it, I found it to be more hyperreal - taking the minutiae of socio-political conventions and exaggerating them beyond satire until they buckle like reflections in a fun house mirror but retain their definition. After a flying start the book seemed on the brink of that most hateful of things, wackiness (helicopters, dogs) but it tottered back, didn’t fall, and soon resumed and maintained until the end its warm, clever, and deadpan grasp of the situation.
I know comparisons can be odious, but what we’re getting here is that precise atomisation that filmmakers like Wes Anderson/Coen Brothers/Miranda July bring to cinema - amplifying specifics and minutiae, creating a believable distortion of reality which stops short of grotesquery and which delivers, in its wit and perspicacity, impactful emotional jabs.
Kivel has a lot of fun with her prose, it’s airy, warm and funny, and the characters each have their own distinct voice, which is more rare than you might think in a busy book like this. Evie is a thoroughly engaging protagonist - more resilient, capable, and daring than she ever let herself believe - and her growth is as rewarding for us as it becomes for her.
A real treat of a book.
My thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for this book which I requested.
November 4, 2025
Maybe 2.5 for being mildly engaging and I did finish is quickly. I don't typically mind preposterous plot devices but for some reason they bothered me in this book. First, evicting every apartment dweller in NYC? The logistics, the misery, the sheer impossibility of it boggles the mind as it is (imagine the process the elderly or the infirm in multi-story high rises), but then the focus of the policy is narrowed to our main character, the millions of people being evicted at once is glossed over, treated like a casual aside. "But doesn't it suck for Evie???"
Once she's in Texas, I dug it a lot more. Living with her reluctant second cousin, finding a place to live, that place being a giant boot--good! Great even! But then the confusing bit about rampant poverty, the mild scolding she got from her would-be boyfriend about poor people in their community while, at the same time, people keep barging in to her house/boot looking for a cobbler. Like, pick one, is your (established as tiny) community so poor they're stealing apples from her apple tree (they are), or do they have enough disposable income to seek out a cobbler so frequently, it interrupts her work from home life and multiple people tell her to put a sign on the front door.
Fine. But then the secret society of cobblers/shoemakers, her preternatural gift at shoemaking after watching a few classes online, members of the secret society being several hundred years old, breaking her sister of an asylum (locked up for hallucinations and attempted murder), and much of the plot being driven by her trying to get her stuff back from her old NYC landlord...it just all added up to a silly, preposterous tale. Oh, and never mind the sister...just living with her? After escaping and suffering no consequences? I may have missed some sort of sentence adjustment thing or maybe her full sentence was served but it seemed odd to need special shoes to break her out of her asylum.
Oh, and did they walk across the country? Am I remembering that right? At some point, she walked a hundred miles in a day or something. Bah! Back down to 2 stars.
Once she's in Texas, I dug it a lot more. Living with her reluctant second cousin, finding a place to live, that place being a giant boot--good! Great even! But then the confusing bit about rampant poverty, the mild scolding she got from her would-be boyfriend about poor people in their community while, at the same time, people keep barging in to her house/boot looking for a cobbler. Like, pick one, is your (established as tiny) community so poor they're stealing apples from her apple tree (they are), or do they have enough disposable income to seek out a cobbler so frequently, it interrupts her work from home life and multiple people tell her to put a sign on the front door.
Fine. But then the secret society of cobblers/shoemakers, her preternatural gift at shoemaking after watching a few classes online, members of the secret society being several hundred years old, breaking her sister of an asylum (locked up for hallucinations and attempted murder), and much of the plot being driven by her trying to get her stuff back from her old NYC landlord...it just all added up to a silly, preposterous tale. Oh, and never mind the sister...just living with her? After escaping and suffering no consequences? I may have missed some sort of sentence adjustment thing or maybe her full sentence was served but it seemed odd to need special shoes to break her out of her asylum.
Oh, and did they walk across the country? Am I remembering that right? At some point, she walked a hundred miles in a day or something. Bah! Back down to 2 stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2025
At its core, Dwelling is a fairytale—one told with a straight face and a steady hand. It’s a story of unlikely journeys, half-mad love, and the slow, deliberate work of making and remaking things: shoes, homes, selves. It begins in New York and winds its way to the forgotten edges of Texas, touching on both the surreal and the stark.
From the first page, Dwelling had me. Emily Hunt Kivel writes in a way that blurs the line between the real and the not-quite—where the strange feels familiar, and the familiar keeps shifting shape. It’s a novel about home and the absence of it, about what happens when the ground beneath us is no longer ours. I closed the book still caught in its quiet spell.
The first half moved slowly for me—dry, in a way that felt deliberate, maybe too much so. But the second half rewards the wait: our heroine walks through landscapes that echo with the uncanny, both around her and within. Here, Kivel finds her rhythm—leaning into the odd and the ordinary with equal care. There’s real weight beneath the whimsy, especially in how the novel speaks to housing, displacement, and the quiet violences of late capitalism.
Stylistically, it’s as clean as a well-cut key. There’s humor here, deadpan and sharp, and magic that arrives without flourish—sometimes too gently, perhaps. I longed for a little more menace in the mystery, a darker thread beneath the charm. Still, there’s power in its refusal to despair. Even as the world it conjures cracks at the edges, Dwelling insists on possibility—on the quiet dignity of craft, of care, of choosing to stay and mend.
If the first half is a long exhale, the second is a sudden intake of breath. And by the end, I found myself moved—not just by where the story had gone, but by how deeply it believed in the people who build things, fix things, love imperfectly, and go on.
Four stars. I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
From the first page, Dwelling had me. Emily Hunt Kivel writes in a way that blurs the line between the real and the not-quite—where the strange feels familiar, and the familiar keeps shifting shape. It’s a novel about home and the absence of it, about what happens when the ground beneath us is no longer ours. I closed the book still caught in its quiet spell.
The first half moved slowly for me—dry, in a way that felt deliberate, maybe too much so. But the second half rewards the wait: our heroine walks through landscapes that echo with the uncanny, both around her and within. Here, Kivel finds her rhythm—leaning into the odd and the ordinary with equal care. There’s real weight beneath the whimsy, especially in how the novel speaks to housing, displacement, and the quiet violences of late capitalism.
Stylistically, it’s as clean as a well-cut key. There’s humor here, deadpan and sharp, and magic that arrives without flourish—sometimes too gently, perhaps. I longed for a little more menace in the mystery, a darker thread beneath the charm. Still, there’s power in its refusal to despair. Even as the world it conjures cracks at the edges, Dwelling insists on possibility—on the quiet dignity of craft, of care, of choosing to stay and mend.
If the first half is a long exhale, the second is a sudden intake of breath. And by the end, I found myself moved—not just by where the story had gone, but by how deeply it believed in the people who build things, fix things, love imperfectly, and go on.
Four stars. I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
July 30, 2025
Home isn't always where we start—sometimes it's where we land when everything falls apart. This truth resonates throughout "Dwelling," where Evie's world crumbles alongside New York City itself.
The way Kivel portrays Evie's eviction captures that gut-punch feeling of displacement so vividly. Her journey to Gulluck, Texas feels both desperate and brave—exactly what you'd do when you've lost everything except worry for a sister in a psychiatric commune. Their relationship tugged at my heart; those bonds that stretch but never break despite distance and circumstance.
Gulluck itself? What a delightful oddity. The literal shoe-shaped building had me laughing out loud (a children's nursery rhyme come to life!), but it's these touches that make the town feel both cozy and slightly off-kilter. When fantastical characters started appearing, I'll admit I was thrown—the shift toward magical elements wasn't what I expected. Yet somehow, these surreal touches enhanced the story's exploration of belonging.
I experienced this as an audiobook, and Christine Lakin's narration deserves special mention. There I was, wandering through Home Goods, completely transported to Evie's world instead of looking at throw pillows. Her performance brought the quirky residents and Evie's growing connections with her cousin's family to vibrant life.
What makes "Dwelling" special is how it reminds us that home isn't necessarily about property or ownership—sometimes it's found in unexpected connections, in strange little towns with their own logic, where we discover pieces of ourselves we never knew were missing.
Special thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my advanced listening copy. As always, the thoughts shared here are completely my own.
The way Kivel portrays Evie's eviction captures that gut-punch feeling of displacement so vividly. Her journey to Gulluck, Texas feels both desperate and brave—exactly what you'd do when you've lost everything except worry for a sister in a psychiatric commune. Their relationship tugged at my heart; those bonds that stretch but never break despite distance and circumstance.
Gulluck itself? What a delightful oddity. The literal shoe-shaped building had me laughing out loud (a children's nursery rhyme come to life!), but it's these touches that make the town feel both cozy and slightly off-kilter. When fantastical characters started appearing, I'll admit I was thrown—the shift toward magical elements wasn't what I expected. Yet somehow, these surreal touches enhanced the story's exploration of belonging.
I experienced this as an audiobook, and Christine Lakin's narration deserves special mention. There I was, wandering through Home Goods, completely transported to Evie's world instead of looking at throw pillows. Her performance brought the quirky residents and Evie's growing connections with her cousin's family to vibrant life.
What makes "Dwelling" special is how it reminds us that home isn't necessarily about property or ownership—sometimes it's found in unexpected connections, in strange little towns with their own logic, where we discover pieces of ourselves we never knew were missing.
Special thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my advanced listening copy. As always, the thoughts shared here are completely my own.
August 17, 2025
Emily Hunt Kivel’s debut novel Dwelling is a strange amalgam of social realism, absurdist situations and a fairy tale sensibility. Taking it’s cues from the current housing crisis that seems to be impacting young people all over the world, Dwelling then pivots to something stranger and ultimately pretty wholesome.
One day Evie finds herself, along with every other renter in New York, kicked out of her apartment. She reaches out to the only relative she knows of – a second cousin who lives in a small town in Texas. That cousin is a realtor and after reluctantly taking Evie in, determines to find her a house. That house turns out to be a giant boot and just living there gives Evie a whole new view of the world.
Once readers learn of the boot house it is not hard to see the fairy tale connections that Hunt Kivel is making. And there are plenty of other fairy tales involving shoes and show makers that eventually come into play. But while this segue into the surreal is fun, it feels like it undermines the premise of the novel which is a take down of the current housing crisis. In fact, beside a sub plot in which Evie is trying to get back the furniture that she has in storage in the basement of her old building, not much is made of this issue except as the event that sets Evie on her journey of self discovery.
Dwelling is full of quirky characters and situations, buildings that only appear at certain times of the day, magical items (and their artisans) and it works as a fairly breezy modern fairy tale. But its opening promises much more than this and in that respects Dwelling feels like a missed opportunity.
One day Evie finds herself, along with every other renter in New York, kicked out of her apartment. She reaches out to the only relative she knows of – a second cousin who lives in a small town in Texas. That cousin is a realtor and after reluctantly taking Evie in, determines to find her a house. That house turns out to be a giant boot and just living there gives Evie a whole new view of the world.
Once readers learn of the boot house it is not hard to see the fairy tale connections that Hunt Kivel is making. And there are plenty of other fairy tales involving shoes and show makers that eventually come into play. But while this segue into the surreal is fun, it feels like it undermines the premise of the novel which is a take down of the current housing crisis. In fact, beside a sub plot in which Evie is trying to get back the furniture that she has in storage in the basement of her old building, not much is made of this issue except as the event that sets Evie on her journey of self discovery.
Dwelling is full of quirky characters and situations, buildings that only appear at certain times of the day, magical items (and their artisans) and it works as a fairly breezy modern fairy tale. But its opening promises much more than this and in that respects Dwelling feels like a missed opportunity.
November 15, 2025
This story feels like it slipped in from another realm with its small curiosities— an uncanny dream anchored by the very real anxieties of eviction, precarity, and the fragile idea of “home.” Emily Hunt Kivel builds her world with mythic logic: a New York collapsing at the seams, and beyond it a tiny Texas town that feels less discovered than stumbled upon (think fondly of Daniel Wallace’s idyllic little spot, Spectre.)
What delighted me most was how subtly odd the book is— and how thoroughly charming that oddness becomes. Kivel trusts the reader to follow her into the surreal without overexplaining, turning Evie’s search for a place to set roots in, to really belong, into something both intimate and enchanted. The novel reads like a folklore-infused companion to our current housing anxieties, transforming displacement into a peculiar quest in the name of familial love.
What delighted me most was how subtly odd the book is— and how thoroughly charming that oddness becomes. Kivel trusts the reader to follow her into the surreal without overexplaining, turning Evie’s search for a place to set roots in, to really belong, into something both intimate and enchanted. The novel reads like a folklore-infused companion to our current housing anxieties, transforming displacement into a peculiar quest in the name of familial love.
July 17, 2025
A disappointing 2 star review - I wanted it to give so much more but I just didn’t love it. It was so promising in the beginning but was a lot of story with no where to go. Perhaps it was meant to simply be cozy and heartwarming which it did well but I was ready for a dystopian fairytale story.
I was given this ALC through Libro.Fm.
I was given this ALC through Libro.Fm.
October 20, 2025
The two star rating at best. As interesting and believable the premise may be, I was bored as I read through this. There are phrases here and there I just can't understand, and most of it is a drag. Maybe if it were handled differently, would be a hit with me.
I was given a review copy by the publisher.
I was given a review copy by the publisher.
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