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Persona
A feral shut-in discovers a disturbing internet porn video of what seems to be herself. A seance of coked-up artists summons unearthly forces in a studio apartment. The staircase of an exurban marketing company descends endlessly beneath the earth.
In Aoife Josie Clements’ electric, nightmarish, intricately layered novel, the impossibility of goodness crowds in upon two young trans women barely surviving on sex work and zero-hours contracts. Below the familiar evils of capitalism and the bottomless depths of internet culture, a darker horror awaits. What curse follows these women? What are they escaping? What are they running towards?
In Aoife Josie Clements’ electric, nightmarish, intricately layered novel, the impossibility of goodness crowds in upon two young trans women barely surviving on sex work and zero-hours contracts. Below the familiar evils of capitalism and the bottomless depths of internet culture, a darker horror awaits. What curse follows these women? What are they escaping? What are they running towards?
257 pages, Paperback
First published January 27, 2026
33 people are currently reading
1194 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
December 21, 2025
Review in the December 2025 issue of Booklist and on the blog: https://raforall.blogspot.com/2025/12...
Three Words That Describe This Book: disorienting, doppelgänger, nightmarish
More words-- thought provoking, hard truths, immersive terror, SF horror
Impressive Debut-- I am excited to see what else this author can do. The storylines of first Annie and then Amy-- telling the same story in part 1 and 2 but from Annie and then Amy's perspective was an awesome narrative choice. And then part 3, they come together-- it is so disorienting both because their names are similar and they look the same and they are in conversation back and forth..... what a great example of the writing itself adding to the readers disorientation. It ratchets up the unease and makes the entire story better.
And then they go on a road trip together to visit the company they have found out they both work for and.....it goes from disorienting to nightmarish and quite honestly existentially terrifying. This is when the book goes from a good horror story about 2 trans women who find out they look exactly the same and have mirror image apartments to a universally terrifying story.
It stays realistic even as it gets more nightmarish and delves into a bit of SF horror. So many stairs. I don't want to go into a stairwell anytime soon. Seriously.
The entire metaphor the doppelgänger as what it feels like to live as a transperson is not new-- the life before and after- but what Clements does with it is unique and new. Also, being trans in and of itself has nothing to do with the horror. It is just who these two women are. The horror is much much much bigger than them and their lives. I loved that as well.
The book is a horror story that critics late stage capitalism, especially how hard it hits young workers, the horror of lives rules by the internet, and how easy and horrific it is for women on the fringes of society to turn to sex work for money. Loneliness, depression, suicide are all here. Garbage piling up and lots of bugs as well. But the garbage and bugs are there to set the stage. They are not the horror.
This book is a solid 4.5. Like a lot of excellent debuts, it needed a bit more at the end. I loved that the ending was not tidy and that all the problems were not solved. But it needed just a bit stronger of a statement about the SF esque horror parts. Something to bring the terror out of the book. The last pages try to do that but I think it could have been more effective and stronger (I am trying very hard to not give anything away). If that final page was a little more direct and less detached (to mirror the directness and immersive present of the rest of the book) it would have been 5 stars for sure.
Overall-- a strong debut that will linger with readers long after turning the final page, every time they log into an internet chat room or even (as I said before) started walking down a long stairwell. *shivers*
Readalikes: There are many ways this book could lead readers to another title. Blake Crouch is an excellent readalike here. The Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling, Coup de Grace by Sofia Ajram, and Tell Me I'm Worthless by Allison Rumfitt
Three Words That Describe This Book: disorienting, doppelgänger, nightmarish
More words-- thought provoking, hard truths, immersive terror, SF horror
Impressive Debut-- I am excited to see what else this author can do. The storylines of first Annie and then Amy-- telling the same story in part 1 and 2 but from Annie and then Amy's perspective was an awesome narrative choice. And then part 3, they come together-- it is so disorienting both because their names are similar and they look the same and they are in conversation back and forth..... what a great example of the writing itself adding to the readers disorientation. It ratchets up the unease and makes the entire story better.
And then they go on a road trip together to visit the company they have found out they both work for and.....it goes from disorienting to nightmarish and quite honestly existentially terrifying. This is when the book goes from a good horror story about 2 trans women who find out they look exactly the same and have mirror image apartments to a universally terrifying story.
It stays realistic even as it gets more nightmarish and delves into a bit of SF horror. So many stairs. I don't want to go into a stairwell anytime soon. Seriously.
The entire metaphor the doppelgänger as what it feels like to live as a transperson is not new-- the life before and after- but what Clements does with it is unique and new. Also, being trans in and of itself has nothing to do with the horror. It is just who these two women are. The horror is much much much bigger than them and their lives. I loved that as well.
The book is a horror story that critics late stage capitalism, especially how hard it hits young workers, the horror of lives rules by the internet, and how easy and horrific it is for women on the fringes of society to turn to sex work for money. Loneliness, depression, suicide are all here. Garbage piling up and lots of bugs as well. But the garbage and bugs are there to set the stage. They are not the horror.
This book is a solid 4.5. Like a lot of excellent debuts, it needed a bit more at the end. I loved that the ending was not tidy and that all the problems were not solved. But it needed just a bit stronger of a statement about the SF esque horror parts. Something to bring the terror out of the book. The last pages try to do that but I think it could have been more effective and stronger (I am trying very hard to not give anything away). If that final page was a little more direct and less detached (to mirror the directness and immersive present of the rest of the book) it would have been 5 stars for sure.
Overall-- a strong debut that will linger with readers long after turning the final page, every time they log into an internet chat room or even (as I said before) started walking down a long stairwell. *shivers*
Readalikes: There are many ways this book could lead readers to another title. Blake Crouch is an excellent readalike here. The Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling, Coup de Grace by Sofia Ajram, and Tell Me I'm Worthless by Allison Rumfitt
July 28, 2025
A chilling, enthralling novel about two trans women with an uncanny connection. Their shared destiny brings them to the depths of their own hells, and another void beckons, too. Will their rage protect them or lead them blindly into dangers unknown? Clements’ prose is subtle as she crafts an intelligent, ungovernable spiral-down-the-drain story that stuns until its bitter end.
Want to read
July 20, 2025One of the perks of running an indie bookstore is sometimes publishers will just stop in to say hey and drop off some swag. Big thank you to LittlePuss Press for providing me with this ARC.
Honestly this sounds like the most up-my-street kind of book I've encountered in a long time. From the Consortium website:
A trans woman discovers pornography of herself she has no memory of making, only to find herself led to an unimaginably deeper evil.
"The best book I've read in years." —Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt
"An old pain made unreal and vivid in the sputtering, intermittent, blue-lit blight of now." —Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold
A feral shut-in discovers a disturbing internet porn video of what seems to be herself. A seance of coked-up artists summons unearthly forces in a studio apartment. The staircase of an exurban marketing company descends endlessly beneath the earth.
In Aoife Josie Clements’ electric, nightmarish, intricately layered novel, the impossibility of goodness crowds in upon two young trans women barely surviving on sex work and zero-hours contracts. Below the familiar evils of capitalism and the bottomless depths of internet culture, a darker horror awaits. What curse follows these women? What are they escaping? What are they running towards?
Honestly this sounds like the most up-my-street kind of book I've encountered in a long time. From the Consortium website:
A trans woman discovers pornography of herself she has no memory of making, only to find herself led to an unimaginably deeper evil.
"The best book I've read in years." —Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt
"An old pain made unreal and vivid in the sputtering, intermittent, blue-lit blight of now." —Andrew F. Sullivan, author of The Marigold
A feral shut-in discovers a disturbing internet porn video of what seems to be herself. A seance of coked-up artists summons unearthly forces in a studio apartment. The staircase of an exurban marketing company descends endlessly beneath the earth.
In Aoife Josie Clements’ electric, nightmarish, intricately layered novel, the impossibility of goodness crowds in upon two young trans women barely surviving on sex work and zero-hours contracts. Below the familiar evils of capitalism and the bottomless depths of internet culture, a darker horror awaits. What curse follows these women? What are they escaping? What are they running towards?
February 3, 2026
BWAF SINISTER SELECTION
BWAF Score: 8/10
TL;DR: A filthy, funny, soul-sick spiral about a trans woman getting eaten alive by the gig economy, the internet’s Default Persona, and a company that wants your body on file, literally. It’s ambitious as hell, gross in the best ways, and weirdly tender when it counts. Read it if you like your horror smart, mean, and emotionally radioactive.
Aoife Josie Clements is a Calgary, Alberta born writer and multidisciplinary artist whose work sits at the intersection of trans survival, underground performance, and nasty little systems-horror. Alongside fiction, she makes music as Ravine Angel, a persona she’s described as emerging from open mics and noise gigs in Calgary in 2018, using that project to explore identity in increasingly explicit ways over the years, and she’s since been based in Vancouver, BC on the music side. She’s also active in trans-adjacent underground film and media circles with a role as an executive producer of the Castration Movie Anthology, and she has performed in that project as well, working alongside director Louise Weard. That collaboration extends into other public-facing work, including appearances described as co-producer/co-star in writing about Castration Movie. She additionally co-hosts a film-focused podcast (TRANS PANIC) with Weard, which fits the broader pattern here: Clements’ fiction feels like it’s coming from someone steeped in live-performance intensity, DIY media, and the exact kind of cultural sludge Persona is pissed off about.
Clements shows up swinging. Persona is a debut that reads like someone who’s been quietly sharpening knives for years and finally decided to start throwing them. It moves like an album that keeps changing genres mid-track without losing the hook. There’s the essayish cultural critique, the confessional grief-bile, the nightmare logic, the body-horror money shots. Somehow it all coheres into one big, buzzing indictment: of extraction, of shame, of the way “just survive” becomes a lifestyle until you forget you’re allowed to want more.
Here’s the anchor without spoiling the machinery. Annie is a young trans woman living in a shrinking little world, trying to make rent and stay invisible enough to not get hurt. She works for Chariot, a remote survey mill that pays pennies and asks increasingly fucked questions about war crimes and consumer preference like it’s all the same drop-down menu. Then the portal throws an error that feels like a curse: “NETWORK INSECURE. PLEASE SIGN IN FOR BODY SCAN.” Annie did this job specifically so strangers would not get access to her body, and now the job is basically saying: lol, actually, we need to look at you. What follows is a fracture. Annie’s sense of self, safety, and even basic reality starts slipping sideways, and she’s forced into contact with another version of her life and another version of herself, Amy, who is both a mirror and a warning. Together they try to figure out what Chariot actually is before it finishes whatever the hell it started.
The book weaponizes the everyday into cosmic dread. The “Default Persona” passages are nasty little sermons about online anonymity and how it becomes a mask you can’t take off, even when it’s poisoning you. And then Clements takes that social truth and makes it physical. The horror isn’t just “people are shitty online.” It’s “identity is a resource,” and somewhere a system is built to harvest it. That’s why the body scan scene hits like a panic attack. The interface is banal, the language is customer-service polite, and it keeps repeating a phrase that turns into a chant: “Reposition please.” Annie’s eyes get “thoroughly fucked,” the room fills with distortion, and the past comes up like bile. It’s sensory overload rendered with cruel precision.
Then, later, the book goes full Hell Factory. We get a vision of Chariot’s literal infrastructure: a tower surrounded by a trench of bodies, waste, heat, and recycling, with metallic arms selecting which bodies get to “go out” and which get dismantled for parts. It is revolting, hypnotic, and grimly funny in that “oh cool, capitalism is an eldritch organism” way. When the narrative starts talking about same-face boys used for labor and minerals, it’s not subtle, and thank Christ for that. Subtlety is overrated when the world is already screaming.
Persona is written like a fever diary that also has a theory degree. The prose can spool out in long, incantatory runs, then snap into clean, clinical UI language, then pivot into second-person “you” like it’s aiming a camera straight at your guilt. Clements uses repetition the way horror directors use a recurring sound cue: phrases come back slightly re-contextualized until they stop being words and start being pressure. Even the book’s design nods at unease, with a note about the fonts being “awkward” and “too loose,” hoping it left you “slightly uneasy.” Mission accomplished, you sickos.
The themes linger like cheap smoke in a hoodie. Identity here is both survival tool and commodity, constantly threatened by systems that demand you flatten yourself into something legible. Annie’s dissociation, her history of sleepwalking, her sense that she might not “exist” the way she thought she did, all of it gets expressed through horror machinery that is literally about bodies being processed, faces being standardized, and life being outsourced. The aftertaste is that lilac-green underpass light, the feeling of being watched by a screen that calls itself customer support.
Amongst transgressive queer horror, Persona feels like a big, nasty step forward: not just transgressive for shock, but transgressive because it refuses the polite lie that any of this is fine. By the time you’re watching someone sing under an overpass with a scavenged karaoke machine, half-begging, half-performing a self back into existence, you realize the book has dragged you somewhere real, and it did it with a grin and a mouth full of broken glass.
Excellent, weird, ambitious, and memorable, like getting your soul audited by a haunted HR portal and still crawling out saying, holy shit, I’m alive.
Read if you can handle body horror that is wet, industrial, and not interested in your lunch plans or you like books that mix cultural critique with nightmare logic.
Skip if you hate internet-voice essay segments and second-person accusation energy or you do not want gross-out imagery tied to sex, shame, and systems.
BWAF Score: 8/10
TL;DR: A filthy, funny, soul-sick spiral about a trans woman getting eaten alive by the gig economy, the internet’s Default Persona, and a company that wants your body on file, literally. It’s ambitious as hell, gross in the best ways, and weirdly tender when it counts. Read it if you like your horror smart, mean, and emotionally radioactive.
Aoife Josie Clements is a Calgary, Alberta born writer and multidisciplinary artist whose work sits at the intersection of trans survival, underground performance, and nasty little systems-horror. Alongside fiction, she makes music as Ravine Angel, a persona she’s described as emerging from open mics and noise gigs in Calgary in 2018, using that project to explore identity in increasingly explicit ways over the years, and she’s since been based in Vancouver, BC on the music side. She’s also active in trans-adjacent underground film and media circles with a role as an executive producer of the Castration Movie Anthology, and she has performed in that project as well, working alongside director Louise Weard. That collaboration extends into other public-facing work, including appearances described as co-producer/co-star in writing about Castration Movie. She additionally co-hosts a film-focused podcast (TRANS PANIC) with Weard, which fits the broader pattern here: Clements’ fiction feels like it’s coming from someone steeped in live-performance intensity, DIY media, and the exact kind of cultural sludge Persona is pissed off about.
Clements shows up swinging. Persona is a debut that reads like someone who’s been quietly sharpening knives for years and finally decided to start throwing them. It moves like an album that keeps changing genres mid-track without losing the hook. There’s the essayish cultural critique, the confessional grief-bile, the nightmare logic, the body-horror money shots. Somehow it all coheres into one big, buzzing indictment: of extraction, of shame, of the way “just survive” becomes a lifestyle until you forget you’re allowed to want more.
Here’s the anchor without spoiling the machinery. Annie is a young trans woman living in a shrinking little world, trying to make rent and stay invisible enough to not get hurt. She works for Chariot, a remote survey mill that pays pennies and asks increasingly fucked questions about war crimes and consumer preference like it’s all the same drop-down menu. Then the portal throws an error that feels like a curse: “NETWORK INSECURE. PLEASE SIGN IN FOR BODY SCAN.” Annie did this job specifically so strangers would not get access to her body, and now the job is basically saying: lol, actually, we need to look at you. What follows is a fracture. Annie’s sense of self, safety, and even basic reality starts slipping sideways, and she’s forced into contact with another version of her life and another version of herself, Amy, who is both a mirror and a warning. Together they try to figure out what Chariot actually is before it finishes whatever the hell it started.
The book weaponizes the everyday into cosmic dread. The “Default Persona” passages are nasty little sermons about online anonymity and how it becomes a mask you can’t take off, even when it’s poisoning you. And then Clements takes that social truth and makes it physical. The horror isn’t just “people are shitty online.” It’s “identity is a resource,” and somewhere a system is built to harvest it. That’s why the body scan scene hits like a panic attack. The interface is banal, the language is customer-service polite, and it keeps repeating a phrase that turns into a chant: “Reposition please.” Annie’s eyes get “thoroughly fucked,” the room fills with distortion, and the past comes up like bile. It’s sensory overload rendered with cruel precision.
Then, later, the book goes full Hell Factory. We get a vision of Chariot’s literal infrastructure: a tower surrounded by a trench of bodies, waste, heat, and recycling, with metallic arms selecting which bodies get to “go out” and which get dismantled for parts. It is revolting, hypnotic, and grimly funny in that “oh cool, capitalism is an eldritch organism” way. When the narrative starts talking about same-face boys used for labor and minerals, it’s not subtle, and thank Christ for that. Subtlety is overrated when the world is already screaming.
Persona is written like a fever diary that also has a theory degree. The prose can spool out in long, incantatory runs, then snap into clean, clinical UI language, then pivot into second-person “you” like it’s aiming a camera straight at your guilt. Clements uses repetition the way horror directors use a recurring sound cue: phrases come back slightly re-contextualized until they stop being words and start being pressure. Even the book’s design nods at unease, with a note about the fonts being “awkward” and “too loose,” hoping it left you “slightly uneasy.” Mission accomplished, you sickos.
The themes linger like cheap smoke in a hoodie. Identity here is both survival tool and commodity, constantly threatened by systems that demand you flatten yourself into something legible. Annie’s dissociation, her history of sleepwalking, her sense that she might not “exist” the way she thought she did, all of it gets expressed through horror machinery that is literally about bodies being processed, faces being standardized, and life being outsourced. The aftertaste is that lilac-green underpass light, the feeling of being watched by a screen that calls itself customer support.
Amongst transgressive queer horror, Persona feels like a big, nasty step forward: not just transgressive for shock, but transgressive because it refuses the polite lie that any of this is fine. By the time you’re watching someone sing under an overpass with a scavenged karaoke machine, half-begging, half-performing a self back into existence, you realize the book has dragged you somewhere real, and it did it with a grin and a mouth full of broken glass.
Excellent, weird, ambitious, and memorable, like getting your soul audited by a haunted HR portal and still crawling out saying, holy shit, I’m alive.
Read if you can handle body horror that is wet, industrial, and not interested in your lunch plans or you like books that mix cultural critique with nightmare logic.
Skip if you hate internet-voice essay segments and second-person accusation energy or you do not want gross-out imagery tied to sex, shame, and systems.
February 2, 2026
Hmm. I liked Amy’s sections better than Annie’s. Ending was interesting.
January 31, 2026
When someone literally says “go fuck yourself”…
“He explained to me that while he’d never thought he’d meet someone like me, the work of keeping me together had become too much”. Ouch.
“He explained to me that while he’d never thought he’d meet someone like me, the work of keeping me together had become too much”. Ouch.
November 9, 2025
Persona has a fascinating and unsettling core idea about identity, specifically, what makes a person themselves in an era where our bodies and images exist online in ways we can’t fully control. the novel begins with amy discovering what seems to be pornographic footage of herself, with no memory of ever filming it. later, we meet annie, who tells the same story of performing in porn online and who happens to look exactly like amy. when they finally meet, the question becomes less who is copying who and more: if we can be replicated, what makes us real?
this is where the book is strongest. the philosophical horror is real, and it spirals into that uncomfortable, almost dissociative territory where the self starts to feel unstable. the horror isn’t just in the events, but also in what it makes you think about afterwards. the existential crisis is the monster.
however, here’s where the book lost me. the writing often leans into a grimy, shabby atmosphere, and while i understand this is part of the horror, i personally found it overwhelming. the air feels heavy. it’s immersive, but in a way that made me want to step back from the page instead of lean in. for me, it sometimes crossed into murkiness, where i felt myself getting lost rather than drawn deeper.
the idea resonated. the experience did not. while i absolutely appreciate what the author is doing: the questions of selfhood, identity, capitalism, and how we are consumed, i didn’t find the actual reading journey satisfying. the horror works, but not in a way that felt enjoyable. it’s a book that will stick in my thoughts, but not one i loved living inside.
-------
to-read:
certainly a reasonable and realistic fear in our modern world, i'm scared
*thank you to LittlePuss Press for the ARC*
this is where the book is strongest. the philosophical horror is real, and it spirals into that uncomfortable, almost dissociative territory where the self starts to feel unstable. the horror isn’t just in the events, but also in what it makes you think about afterwards. the existential crisis is the monster.
however, here’s where the book lost me. the writing often leans into a grimy, shabby atmosphere, and while i understand this is part of the horror, i personally found it overwhelming. the air feels heavy. it’s immersive, but in a way that made me want to step back from the page instead of lean in. for me, it sometimes crossed into murkiness, where i felt myself getting lost rather than drawn deeper.
the idea resonated. the experience did not. while i absolutely appreciate what the author is doing: the questions of selfhood, identity, capitalism, and how we are consumed, i didn’t find the actual reading journey satisfying. the horror works, but not in a way that felt enjoyable. it’s a book that will stick in my thoughts, but not one i loved living inside.
-------
to-read:
certainly a reasonable and realistic fear in our modern world, i'm scared
*thank you to LittlePuss Press for the ARC*
January 12, 2026
3⭐️
Persona is a concept-driven exploration of identity, dissociation, and the performance of self in digital and physical spaces. The story itself is refreshing and takes a deep dive into personhood, gender, visibility, and fragmentation. At its best, the book is intellectually engaging and unsettling in deliberate ways.
Where the novel succeeds is in its ideas. I had really high hopes for this and about halfway through the story was meeting those expectations. But towards about 75% in, I felt disappointed.
Where it fell short for me was in execution. The narrative often felt emotionally distant, and the abstraction frequently overpowered the story itself. While I understood what the book was aiming to do, I felt like there was so much build up with not enough payoff at all.
Readers who prefer theory-forward, experimental fiction and are comfortable with discomfort and ambiguity will enjoy this, however, readers looking for emotional intimacy or narrative momentum may struggle.
Overall, Persona was okay- not the best and not the worst.
Disclosure: Thank you to Edelweiss, Little Puss Press, and the author for providing an advance copy of this book ahead of its release. This review is voluntary and reflects my honest opinion.
Persona is a concept-driven exploration of identity, dissociation, and the performance of self in digital and physical spaces. The story itself is refreshing and takes a deep dive into personhood, gender, visibility, and fragmentation. At its best, the book is intellectually engaging and unsettling in deliberate ways.
Where the novel succeeds is in its ideas. I had really high hopes for this and about halfway through the story was meeting those expectations. But towards about 75% in, I felt disappointed.
Where it fell short for me was in execution. The narrative often felt emotionally distant, and the abstraction frequently overpowered the story itself. While I understood what the book was aiming to do, I felt like there was so much build up with not enough payoff at all.
Readers who prefer theory-forward, experimental fiction and are comfortable with discomfort and ambiguity will enjoy this, however, readers looking for emotional intimacy or narrative momentum may struggle.
Overall, Persona was okay- not the best and not the worst.
Disclosure: Thank you to Edelweiss, Little Puss Press, and the author for providing an advance copy of this book ahead of its release. This review is voluntary and reflects my honest opinion.
March 5, 2026
I generally really liked this book. The writing, concept, and vibe are right up my alley. The main thing holding it back is that the last section, which is only short, felt very pointless. I didn't get anything extra out of that last section. But I really liked the rest of the book.
There were a few grammar/copying errors in my copy of the book. But it's from a small publishing house and it's a unique printing so 🤷
There were a few grammar/copying errors in my copy of the book. But it's from a small publishing house and it's a unique printing so 🤷
December 2, 2025
This book is split into 4 parts - part one as Annie’s POV, part two as Amy’s, part 3 together, and part 4… I struggled to get through part 1 as the imagery overwhelmed the plot for me. Part 2 brought some more plot, and I was interested in where their story would take me, but the wrap up was too fast, too confusing, and left too many unanswered questions. I wanted more about Chariot. And I wish the overarching commentary on society wasn’t so vague that I couldn’t follow.
April 28, 2025
Honestly, the setup here is one of those bone deep nightmares - what if one day you were minding your business and trying to survive, and you found porn of yourself online. The post capitalist hellscape here ends up becoming literal in an absolutely eerie escalation as the book goes on, and as Amy and Annie circle and eventually intersect with each other and try to figure out how this happens, there's something else waiting for them both. I actually really like that this doesn't try to say that everything's going to be ok in the end, that sometimes all that's waiting for you is a void you can choose to walk into or not, and the choosing not to might end up breaking you as well. Hell of a debut, and if she choosess to, I can't wait to see what else Ms. Clements has up her sleeve for us.
November 24, 2025
Thank you to edelweiss as well as the publisher for reaching out and giving me this ARC in exchange for my honest review!!
This was a trip. It has a little bit of everything. While I wasn’t too sure about a lot of points I liked what I could understand. 2 girls with the same face live different lives. Annie and Amy were interesting in how different they were. Annie was a recluse who lived in a barely livable apartment and only interacted with her boyfriend and people on the internet. Amy had a lot of friends but could never really connect with anyone fully. They had different childhoods and upbringings. They are both trans women. The way this got twisted into a sci-fi cosmic horror I didn’t get as much, but I liked the journey.
This was a trip. It has a little bit of everything. While I wasn’t too sure about a lot of points I liked what I could understand. 2 girls with the same face live different lives. Annie and Amy were interesting in how different they were. Annie was a recluse who lived in a barely livable apartment and only interacted with her boyfriend and people on the internet. Amy had a lot of friends but could never really connect with anyone fully. They had different childhoods and upbringings. They are both trans women. The way this got twisted into a sci-fi cosmic horror I didn’t get as much, but I liked the journey.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
What a captivating, terrifying experience that was.
A novel with so many layers, we're first introduced to Annie - surrounded by bags of garbage, having not left her apartment in a year. She's filling out online surveys for a tiny amount of cash when she discovers a pornographic video where the woman looks exactly like her.
Part two we flip to Amy; the girl in the video. She's the mirror image of Annie and the novel weaves their stories together so well. How is this possible? Are they the same person? And if not.. wtf?
There's a sharp genre shift from horror to sci-fi in part three that I've no interest in spoiling for you, but I can only say that I wish I hadn't decided to eat a mince pie whilst reading the tail end of the book.
For a novel with such astute commentary on identity, individual choice, capitalism etc I did feel like the ending could have been stronger. I wasn't expecting all the answers but I had to reread the last couple of pages a few of times wondering what I was missing. All in all it's a propulsive, sickening, brilliant journey. I am so excited to hear everyone's opinions when Persona is published in January!
Overall: excellent. Feels like a cross between Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt and Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram.
A novel with so many layers, we're first introduced to Annie - surrounded by bags of garbage, having not left her apartment in a year. She's filling out online surveys for a tiny amount of cash when she discovers a pornographic video where the woman looks exactly like her.
Part two we flip to Amy; the girl in the video. She's the mirror image of Annie and the novel weaves their stories together so well. How is this possible? Are they the same person? And if not.. wtf?
There's a sharp genre shift from horror to sci-fi in part three that I've no interest in spoiling for you, but I can only say that I wish I hadn't decided to eat a mince pie whilst reading the tail end of the book.
For a novel with such astute commentary on identity, individual choice, capitalism etc I did feel like the ending could have been stronger. I wasn't expecting all the answers but I had to reread the last couple of pages a few of times wondering what I was missing. All in all it's a propulsive, sickening, brilliant journey. I am so excited to hear everyone's opinions when Persona is published in January!
Overall: excellent. Feels like a cross between Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt and Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram.
Review of advance copy
Bought this one before it came out when I saw it on the new releases stack in the back office. Mixing in various elements of cosmic and body horror, this novel takes a look at concepts of identity and the ways in which it fractures under pressure. While, on the surface, the use of a doppelgänger as a metaphor for trans experience is familiar, what is done with it here is new and feels the closest to reality of any that I’ve ever read before. The author manages to intertwine transness into the horror without ever making the trans identity itself the horror. Grotesque depictions of muck and bugs and sex, along with the disorienting narration, all set the stage for what is actually a beautiful story about alienation in our post-capitalist world. I have been waiting for something like this, and hope we get more from Clements.
January 26, 2026
I started writing a very similar book and was pretty well into it when I read the premise of Persona and pre-ordered the deluxe package from my favorite publisher. It came with a really cryptic computer program that tried to give me a seizure. That same week, a former coworker put me in touch with another trans woman who has the same name as me, who is also a writer, who grew up in the same neighborhood as I did. I finished Persona today and it was so good that I feel like I can’t finish writing my own book now, or, that I need to. I am mesmerized and elated and haunted and defeated by this experience. Simultaneously five stars for being a masterpiece I couldn’t put down, and zero stars for attacking me personally.
February 2, 2026
This book was out of my comfort zone but I was very intrigued. I connected a lot with Annie & Amy. Themes from their lives reflecting my own. The only gripe I have is with the description of Chariot headquarters, it was difficult for me to picture what I’m supposed to be envisioning. That is partially my fault. Overall I enjoyed this read. I love that this book was published by LittlePuss Press, an all trans woman ran publishing company. The shape of the book is slightly awkward, along with the spacing. It’s so cool how this was done intentionally and adds to the overall mood of the novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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December 3, 2025(This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy provided by Edelweiss.)
A weird little book; I’m not sure what to make of it. This has a cool concept, but it never fully grabbed me. I don’t need a book to answer all my questions, but the ending just confused me. Definitely a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”: it’s not a bad book, I just wasn’t the right reader for it. I would give the author’s future work a try.
A weird little book; I’m not sure what to make of it. This has a cool concept, but it never fully grabbed me. I don’t need a book to answer all my questions, but the ending just confused me. Definitely a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”: it’s not a bad book, I just wasn’t the right reader for it. I would give the author’s future work a try.
March 2, 2026
Incredibly weird and unsettling in the best ways. I fell in love with Clements writing very quickly. Her descriptions are oftentimes visceral. The inner words of her characters are distinct, but I much preferred the writing in part one. Some dialogue and phrasing were a bit confusing, and at times, it was hard to follow the flow of time. The ending is quite unfulfilled, but it also leaves room to think, so im a little conflicted.
Review of advance copy received from Author
A new high water mark for literary horror, influenced by everything from Ingmar Bergman to Neon Genesis Evangelion and alive with the crawling menace of late capitalist anxieties. Clements' prose is clean and sophisticated, and her willingness to leave the reader alone with their fears and uncertainties cements this as an instant classic.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I am not good at writing book reviews. This was very well written. I hope we get more novels from Aoife. I'm so glad to see writing with this much care focused on the horror of— self-isolation, sex transition, financial precarity, womanhood, sleep deprivation, personhood, grad students...
Another banger from LittlePuss Press
Another banger from LittlePuss Press
February 2, 2026
Nightmarish portrayal of a couple of trans women making ends meet with virtual sex work and incessant survey work that pays next to nothing. Don't know what's more terrifying - the protagonist discovering her face on a body of another woman in a sex video or a road trip she takes to her mysterious employer? Fabulous debut though definitely will appeal to select group of readers.
February 8, 2026
This was everything I need and love in a weird fever dreamy book. I recommend not knowing anything about this before reading it. Don’t read the full synopsis either; just the first sentence would be enough to intrigue you. It is a mindf**k type of book. Read it if you liked Tear by Erica McKeen and Supplication by Nour Abi-Nakhoul.
December 20, 2025
rly good + refreshingly focused on its main concept, enabling several different currents and ideas to flow under the text without imposing on the reader. idk if the ending completely works, such a hard left turn and a little obscured to me, but its all aces.
February 4, 2026
4/5
Trans women always come out with BANGERS, I swear to God. It lost a bit of steam for me near the end and I started losing the plot, but all the better for discussion!
Love a bit of biomechanical twincest on a Wednesday morning.
Trans women always come out with BANGERS, I swear to God. It lost a bit of steam for me near the end and I started losing the plot, but all the better for discussion!
Love a bit of biomechanical twincest on a Wednesday morning.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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February 19, 2026I honestly don’t even know if I liked this
Hard to look away - sometimes viscerally disgusting
The “explanation” of Amy and Annie’s connection was a little disappointing to me
I think sometimes it took itself a little too seriously (which I was endeared by about half the time)
Hard to look away - sometimes viscerally disgusting
The “explanation” of Amy and Annie’s connection was a little disappointing to me
I think sometimes it took itself a little too seriously (which I was endeared by about half the time)
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February 23, 2026This book was so compelling and I never knew where it was taking me next. For me, I don't like Sci-Fi, so, I definitely wasn't the book's target audience, but I'm still glad I read it and enjoyed many parts of it. I think people who like sci-fi, technology, body horror will really enjoy this.
September 6, 2025
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT YOU !!!!
we are all doomed.
also points for multiple instances of the words COCKROACH and CUM in the same paragraph. SAME SENTENCE!
I AM AFFRAID !
of stairs now.
we are all doomed.
also points for multiple instances of the words COCKROACH and CUM in the same paragraph. SAME SENTENCE!
I AM AFFRAID !
of stairs now.
Review of advance copy
I blind bought this from a local bookstore because the premise seemed really interesting, but I had no idea it hadn't been released yet! I really enjoyed this one
February 7, 2026
beginning was soooo strong !! so strong! kinda lost me with amy and annie meeting and IMMEDIATELY becoming close. it just could have been fleshed out more. the ending was lackluster and felt rushed.
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