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To Rest Our Minds and Bodies
An unnamed psychology student in her final year of university falls in love with a postgraduate student in computer sciences named Luke, loses her virginity (but not to him), and struggles to understand and connect with the world around her. Armstrong queries the nature of meaninglessness, mapping both the private disintegration of a young woman's sense of self and the collective pessimism of her generation's sense of the future.
193 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
August 30, 2025
We were talking about books that night. Luke told me his favourite book was about a very old man depressingly ageing and losing his mind and I said I really admire how your favourite book actually has nothing to do with you. All of my favourite books were about vaguely disembodied cerebral girls and if I wrote some book it would be about a vaguely disembodied cerebral girl too, I told Luke this but suddenly I couldn't think of any examples.
The author
To Rest Our Minds and Bodies, forthcoming in 2025, is the debut novel by Harriet Armstrong, whose short stories have previously been published in/by Cōnfingō, HEAT, The Cambridge Review of Books and Virginia Quarterly Review.
The publisher
It forms part of the 'quick brown fox' collection from the independent press Les Fugitives originally known for their Francophone novel: "the quick brown fox collection, which curates English-language originals by contemporary writers of all genders. Our focus remains on women in arts and society, underrepresented experiences, marginal voices and unconventional literary forms. which curates English-language originals by contemporary writers of all genders. Our focus remains on women in arts and society, underrepresented experiences, marginal voices and unconventional literary forms."
The book
To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is narrated by a young woman in her final year as an undergraduate on a 'vague multi-disciplinary social science course' as she self-depreciatingly describes it after meeting Luke in their shared kitchen (with 6 others) in their student accommodation. He, by contrast, completing a Masters in 'computers'.
A lengthy extract from the opening pages of the novel can be found in The Georgia Review.
The book describes brilliantly that in-between nature of university life, the, somewhat illusional, nature of the freedom in studying ("Somehow that felt like freedom to me, sitting there doing all the different tasks I had been told to do by people who were older than me and who were able to really evaluate me") and accommodation ("It was very thrilling to be able to unpack my things into some new room. It was so satisfying to have a space which was entirely mine and which had to hold my whole life. It was so lovely that my printer had to lie down on the awful brown carpet right next to my ring binder folders and my trainers and boots, right beneath my raincoat. I had always wanted to see all of my possessions at once without moving my face.")
As well as the need to make sense of the world and your own self, particularly acute for our dyspraxic narrator, and aided by the nature of her course which includes lectures on a wide range of topics from statistics, anatomy, global warming, anthropology etc:
I was really feeling, at that time, some need to contextualize myself inside the world, to position myself as a piece of something bigger, something very fundamental. I was creating a kind of self-educational PowerPoint about different foundational concepts, Marxism, Impressionism, I was planning to cover every concept and I felt that when I was finished I would somehow be a part of things, somehow held very tightly by the world and surrounded by things I understood and could master or relate to. I really wanted to make sense in relation to the things that were around me, that was important to me.
The main narrative drive comes from the narrator's friendship with Luke, who breaks up with his girlfriend shortly after the two first meet. To him they are platonic close friends, but the narrator, a virgin, wants the relationship to be something much more, to an almost obsessive level, recognising her feelings in the work of Louise Bourgeois and the series of different 'Do you love me' works she produced of which this is one:
“My knives are like a tongue - I love, I do not love, I hate. If you don’t love me, I am ready to attack. I am a double-edged knife.”
― Louise Bourgeois
Her indirect attempts to communicate her feelings to Luke dominate her thoughts (that there is very little direct speech in the novel, and what is there is non punctuated as such, is I think very symbolic*), including by a series of disastrous Tinder dates which she describes to him in blow-by-blow (pun intended!) detail.
[* Having had the chance to ask the author about this she said her brother, who read the book, had recently made the same point to her. She said it was more a stylistic choice not to punctuate direct speech, but that sub-consciously this may have reflected her narrator's interiorisation of even conversations]
As well as art and literature (Catcher In Rye; My Year of Rest and Relaxation; Bleak House; A Little Life), musical references populate the text, the two swapping song recommendations, which for the narrator, if not Luke, are messages she is sending him, typically songs which start quietly but end with anger ("quite a gentle song until suddenly Mitski is screaming about how all she ever wants is this person who is clearly not listening to her").
My own, unofficial Spotify playlist of some of the songs featured.
And in practice her attempts to engage, with Luke and with the world, have the opposite effect.
A striking work and recommended.
The author
To Rest Our Minds and Bodies, forthcoming in 2025, is the debut novel by Harriet Armstrong, whose short stories have previously been published in/by Cōnfingō, HEAT, The Cambridge Review of Books and Virginia Quarterly Review.
The publisher
It forms part of the 'quick brown fox' collection from the independent press Les Fugitives originally known for their Francophone novel: "the quick brown fox collection, which curates English-language originals by contemporary writers of all genders. Our focus remains on women in arts and society, underrepresented experiences, marginal voices and unconventional literary forms. which curates English-language originals by contemporary writers of all genders. Our focus remains on women in arts and society, underrepresented experiences, marginal voices and unconventional literary forms."
The book
To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is narrated by a young woman in her final year as an undergraduate on a 'vague multi-disciplinary social science course' as she self-depreciatingly describes it after meeting Luke in their shared kitchen (with 6 others) in their student accommodation. He, by contrast, completing a Masters in 'computers'.
A lengthy extract from the opening pages of the novel can be found in The Georgia Review.
The book describes brilliantly that in-between nature of university life, the, somewhat illusional, nature of the freedom in studying ("Somehow that felt like freedom to me, sitting there doing all the different tasks I had been told to do by people who were older than me and who were able to really evaluate me") and accommodation ("It was very thrilling to be able to unpack my things into some new room. It was so satisfying to have a space which was entirely mine and which had to hold my whole life. It was so lovely that my printer had to lie down on the awful brown carpet right next to my ring binder folders and my trainers and boots, right beneath my raincoat. I had always wanted to see all of my possessions at once without moving my face.")
As well as the need to make sense of the world and your own self, particularly acute for our dyspraxic narrator, and aided by the nature of her course which includes lectures on a wide range of topics from statistics, anatomy, global warming, anthropology etc:
I was really feeling, at that time, some need to contextualize myself inside the world, to position myself as a piece of something bigger, something very fundamental. I was creating a kind of self-educational PowerPoint about different foundational concepts, Marxism, Impressionism, I was planning to cover every concept and I felt that when I was finished I would somehow be a part of things, somehow held very tightly by the world and surrounded by things I understood and could master or relate to. I really wanted to make sense in relation to the things that were around me, that was important to me.
The main narrative drive comes from the narrator's friendship with Luke, who breaks up with his girlfriend shortly after the two first meet. To him they are platonic close friends, but the narrator, a virgin, wants the relationship to be something much more, to an almost obsessive level, recognising her feelings in the work of Louise Bourgeois and the series of different 'Do you love me' works she produced of which this is one:
“My knives are like a tongue - I love, I do not love, I hate. If you don’t love me, I am ready to attack. I am a double-edged knife.”
― Louise Bourgeois
Her indirect attempts to communicate her feelings to Luke dominate her thoughts (that there is very little direct speech in the novel, and what is there is non punctuated as such, is I think very symbolic*), including by a series of disastrous Tinder dates which she describes to him in blow-by-blow (pun intended!) detail.
[* Having had the chance to ask the author about this she said her brother, who read the book, had recently made the same point to her. She said it was more a stylistic choice not to punctuate direct speech, but that sub-consciously this may have reflected her narrator's interiorisation of even conversations]
As well as art and literature (Catcher In Rye; My Year of Rest and Relaxation; Bleak House; A Little Life), musical references populate the text, the two swapping song recommendations, which for the narrator, if not Luke, are messages she is sending him, typically songs which start quietly but end with anger ("quite a gentle song until suddenly Mitski is screaming about how all she ever wants is this person who is clearly not listening to her").
My own, unofficial Spotify playlist of some of the songs featured.
And in practice her attempts to engage, with Luke and with the world, have the opposite effect.
A striking work and recommended.
August 25, 2025
The sad, occasionally sweet, vaguely tragic story of a childlike young woman in her final year of university. She grapples with her place in the world & an intense infatuation with her tender yet distant friend Luke. There’s no real plot to speak of (which is fine), there is no climax or catharsis but it’s also not interesting or emotionally complex; the narrator wants to examine her life but she thinks narrowly, constantly repeating the same few words, phrases and ideas. Presumably all this is intentional, part of the voice, but what can I say: I didn’t like it.
The narrator lampshades the book’s flaws throughout: ‘If I wrote a novel it would be about some girl, she might think about motion or time or meaning but it would never extend beyond that... It would be a completely unconceptual novel trapped inside the limited mind of some girl.’ It certainly is that, for better or worse.
The narrator lampshades the book’s flaws throughout: ‘If I wrote a novel it would be about some girl, she might think about motion or time or meaning but it would never extend beyond that... It would be a completely unconceptual novel trapped inside the limited mind of some girl.’ It certainly is that, for better or worse.
June 9, 2025
Emotional and uncomfortable, I've been thinking about it constantly since I put it down. I can't help but recognise the girl, she's so many people I know.
January 1, 2026
I just want to read a good college girl romance novel that isn't gratuitously navel-gazey and lacking in punctuation. Would also prefer if the protagonist didn't start discussing my year of rest and relaxation lmao. And if every food wasn't described as wet so often
December 5, 2025
Such vulnerable writing, I’ve never read anything quite like this. Armstrong explores the caverns of our emotions, reaching deep into the parts of ourselves we hide away. She bares naked the desires, feelings and secrets that we whisper only to ourselves. I feel like I was reading my own diary, except it wasn’t mine, and this love wasn’t mine but it felt so intensely like it was. For an evening (the time it took me to read this debut), I felt disembodied, like I had given myself completely to this narrator. When reading To Rest Our Minds and Bodies, I became hollowed out, and after finishing, I had to adjust to being back in my own skin again.
August 28, 2025
i picked this book up last weekend in london with my friends before going for a dip in the ponds in hampstead.
i was drawn to it because of my current obsession with yoshitomo nara. my choice was confirmed at the cash till by a member of staff telling me it was their favourite book for the year so far.
once i (finally) finished my last read (frankenstein) i couldnt wait to start this one. and it did not disappoint. we follow the narrator in her final year of uni and through some sort of a love story. I really enjoyed the references to psychology, other arts and artists, in particular the music references, my favourite detail in books and i created a playlist for it.
using words of the narrator, i would say this book is “completely unconceptual novel trapped inside the limited mind of some girl.” and i liked it. it is modern and timless, relatable and disturbing, emotional and cold, all at the same time. get your hands on this book, put on my playlist and enjoy the read.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ya...
i was drawn to it because of my current obsession with yoshitomo nara. my choice was confirmed at the cash till by a member of staff telling me it was their favourite book for the year so far.
once i (finally) finished my last read (frankenstein) i couldnt wait to start this one. and it did not disappoint. we follow the narrator in her final year of uni and through some sort of a love story. I really enjoyed the references to psychology, other arts and artists, in particular the music references, my favourite detail in books and i created a playlist for it.
using words of the narrator, i would say this book is “completely unconceptual novel trapped inside the limited mind of some girl.” and i liked it. it is modern and timless, relatable and disturbing, emotional and cold, all at the same time. get your hands on this book, put on my playlist and enjoy the read.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ya...
July 22, 2025
feels like a dreary alternate universe of mine. i wish she had more substance but i guess that is the whole point. ending seems unfulfilling but once again i think that was the authors point. it is unfortunate that you don’t get to see any kind of real growth throughout the book, but not everyone can have a happy ending. i think it made me realize that i am very similar to her in that aspect where i get better and return to a state of self sabotage and i take solace in feeling rejected. i invent stories that have a real impact on my mental. i don’t want to be like her. i want to be better than her. it’s incredibly realistic the way she had never been noticed before and how she completely lost herself the first time a man took interest in her. poor girl.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2025
2.5'tan 3. Beğenemedim. İsimsiz anlatıcı 20 yaşında bir üniversite öğrencisi, Luke adında bir gence takıntılı, seks yapamıyor. duygusal bağlamda kendini arayan, bol bol kitap okuyan ve ota boka ağlayan bir tip. Neredeyse hiç yakın arkadaşı yok, bir Anna var, onunla da pek görüşmüyor. Bazı bölümlerde hoş tınılar olsa da genele bakınca beni pek tatmin etmedi doğrusu. Beklentimin epey altında kaldı.
November 22, 2025
tl;dr: lonely girl in desperate search of finding fullfillment in life and a meaning to her existence develops a toxic, dependent relationship with man. i related to the narrator's endlessly running mind, turning every situation into something pessimistic... but i'm working on it! this girly can't relate. trying desperately to find an anchor, a place to rest & relax in this tumultuous world, you develop unhealthy coping mechanisms - i get it, but that's where my connection with the narrative ended :/ / 1.5 stars
♒︎ ♒︎ ♒︎
I was obsessed with the idea that I should be reading books as rapidly as possible, somehow gathering all of human experience and great human thought inside of me and storing it away for some time in the future when it would be necessary.
...that endlessly disappearing tarmac and the endlessly present pale sea and my book held tightly in both hands, it was very depressing.
Books really had nothing to say about the way that life seemed to vomit itself out, some pointless set of images just spewing itself out forever and in front of my eyes and it was impossible to turn it off and impossible to find meaning in it. Meaning and death were both so alienating and that made books inaccessible, but still it was very important to read.
I was really feeling, at that time, some need to contextualise myself inside the world, to position myself as a piece of something bigger, something very fundamental. I was creating a kind of self-educational PowerPoint about different foundational concepts, Marxism, Impressionism, I was planning to cover every concept and I felt that when I was finished I would somehow be a part of things, somehow held very tightly by the world and surrounded by things I understood and could master or relate to. I really wanted to make sense in relation to the things that were around me, that was important to me.
I didn’t understand what it was that shielded me from these sorts of situations, I was grateful of course but it did worry me: was the fact that nothing bad ever happened to me linked with the fact that nothing happened to me at all. Somehow through existing I repelled action.
I kept feeling all the time that something might change and open up and I would suddenly become a part of things and really let go in the literary society and bring something great to the table.
...some kind of atmosphere which would be somehow conducive to my self-expression but it had no effect on me at all or on the room,
I sank my nails a bit into the yellow skin on the inside of my arm. It was so depressing, that I never had anything to say to anyone. I really had nothing to say about Frank O’Hara’s imaginary death or anything else, it was terrible.
I did read some Frank O’Hara and discovered that I really loved him. I really admired his nonchalance, I felt that his voice was very optimistic and positive and made distress into something which existed just casually on the side of life but which was not at all overpowering or threatening. After all the terrible things I do how amazing it is to find forgiveness and love.
I still felt that everything around me had some hidden core, I felt that the most important and central meanings were concealed and had to be effortfully unearthed. I really couldn’t wait for all those meanings to be revealed to me, I would do anything to have all of those meanings revealed.
I wanted to learn something that would shock me, something that came from someplace very far outside of myself. I was tired of learning things I could have pulled out of my own mind very easily and passively. It was really hard to think of things that might shock me like that, it was hard to think of things that were outside myself.
I nodded like I knew what it was like to have my sense of self stripped away from me by men, like I was sitting there right at that moment watching my sense of self being really dragged away from me. There it goes, my sense of self.
I felt absolutely blessed and like my life was finally about to start unfolding and revealing some beautiful core which had been promised to me all along and which was finally here: here it was, the start of life.
That was how I felt, in that moment: that being a girl opened up unbearable possibilities for being despised and denigrated, for being rejected on some painful and devastating basis, rejected for a reason I might never understand at all.
It was hard to find any kind of reason not to sit around and eat all day. All my life my body had borne no relation to the things I put inside it, it felt like I could eat anything at any time and it would really do nothing. My actions were so free of consequences.
...it was suddenly obvious that there was no danger at all, that I could be hurt but that Luke would never hurt me, that all he could do was open me and open me and that I would always be open to him, wide open and completely soft like a small trembling animal held in two hands, two hands which could crush it completely but which would not, which never would.
It was good to give up and to soften. I really did feel a change inside my body right then. I could perceive some muscles very deep inside me letting go of some resistance, of some drive to panic.
I could see that that linguistic sophistication made almost anything possible and maybe that was something I could learn, that subtlety, that potency, maybe those things could grow inside of me and make some new future possible.
I wanted to undress right there and let the cold fill every crack inside of me. I wanted to swim naked in a foreign sea somewhere, to feel the sea as it flowed into each internal channel and then to walk out onto sand, to lie down on a very clean towel or blanket and eat something natural, some orange, some peach, and be entirely alone, alone for days and days and entirely untraceable. I walked down the hill to the bus stop and imagined the feeling: total aloneness, on and on forever.
Obviously it was depressing, the fact that my feelings were so unrelatable as to be actually implausible to an entire room of people. But on some totally other level the discussion made me feel full of a sharp burning potential. I hadn’t thought the way I felt about things was unusual, I hadn’t thought I owned anything that could surprise anyone. There was a lot of myself that I could keep from people, suddenly. There was some great well of secrecy inside me, something untouchable.
I asked Luke if he would ever want to live with me instead and he said It would be too tiring, we’d be laughing all the time, how would we rest our minds and bodies. Luke phrased things very beautifully when he was trying to be funny, when he was trying to be soft on me and to distract me from meaning through language. I had no answer to his question, How would we rest our minds and bodies. I really didn’t know how we would ever be able to do that.
I took my clothes off then and stood in front of my mirror, seeing my body first as mine and then as some girl’s body, seeing my body as Luke might see it, as a body I could fuck with my own body. Neither version seemed more real or persuasive than the other in that moment, both felt plausible but neither was definitive. I lay down and reached into myself then and felt I was split open, I could plunge myself right into me and spread my fingers like a jellyfish pumping itself through water and really push at my own walls without any resistance at all, without pain, even. I lay there for a long time, pushing at my own endlessly penetrable walls.
...the whole story was quite unconvincing but my feelings and my objective reality had become so completely alienated that lying was my only means of accurately expressing myself. But I didn’t even know what kind of situation would legitimise my feelings. Only some very horrible situation, only some Trauma of the most terrible kind.
I was thinking, as Luke took those things from me, about whether each specific moment was defined by the things which were to come and the things which had already taken place, or whether each moment could take on a kind of independent existence and define itself, and live forever in a reality totally untouched by the past and by the future. I almost felt that there might be a way to take my perception in that moment and to freeze it as some self-sustaining thing, unaffected by whatever was still going to happen between me and Luke and whatever impenetrable things had already happened. Really all I wanted was Luke inside his kitchen surrounded by things to eat and drink and with the sun flung over everything so that everything was warm and clearly visible, each one of his freckles illuminated. That was all I ever wanted.
...all of these things which meant nothing to me except for him. I didn’t know how to reconcile those two thoughts: that it was impossible to transport oneself out of anywhere and that I was surrounded by things which shouted out Luke’s name eternally.
These things that I was learning were the last things that would ever be given to me. Anything else that I wanted to know I would have to seek out for myself. The knowledge wouldn’t be spontaneous, it would be some already existent part of me multiplying itself outwards. It was very strange, that this was what I was left with: a complicated drawing of the human eye, a timeline of a baby’s language learning, a theory someone had made up about symbols and meaning. These things were the last fragments of something that had once been mine.
Was I very bad at writing? That just felt like life to me, random things happening on and on. Nothing was ever allowed to be the end, some unbearable thing would happen and then some slightly less awful but still painful things would happen, then some other unbearable thing, then some other slightly bad things, on and on forever. I didn’t understand why every novel wasn’t just an endless depressing list of pointless things that happened. I gave up on my story then and went back to my room.
For almost two hours I listened to a Fiona Apple song called I Want You to Love Me and I felt as if I had written it myself, the part about how next year it’ll be clear, about how all my particles will disband and disperse, about how while I’m in this body I want you to love me, how I’ve been waiting for you to love me, just waiting on and on for you to love me. It really was true, it was so true that it almost didn’t feel real. It felt like an approximation or a huge over-simplification of something, it felt false in that way because it was so abjectly true.
In another life that would have been mine, that warm wet dissolution of the boundaries of the body.
I was still thinking about SOPHIE, I was still thinking about that death, that death caused by a desperate attempt to capture something.
It was something else that had died, something else that had been killed, I understood it as I stared into my child self’s wide face.
There was a Yoshitomo Nara postcard which said OH! MY GOD! I MISS YOU. I took that postcard down last, I let it watch me take down all the others. Oh my god I miss you, it really was true.
At one point my own hands had been enough for me, I did remember that quite clearly. At one point my own body was enough.
...moving first my feet and then my arms, letting my arms slam down, slamming my arms down, showing, with my dance, the pain that I had the capacity to realise. In another life I could have caused somebody so much pain.
I really did feel that I wanted to die but it felt ridiculous to say it, no one could possibly have any sympathy for that, it was so melodramatic. But deep within the heart of my body I did feel that wish to die. I felt already very dead, I felt that some fundamental part of me was completely dead and would never return to me.
♒︎ ♒︎ ♒︎
I was obsessed with the idea that I should be reading books as rapidly as possible, somehow gathering all of human experience and great human thought inside of me and storing it away for some time in the future when it would be necessary.
...that endlessly disappearing tarmac and the endlessly present pale sea and my book held tightly in both hands, it was very depressing.
Books really had nothing to say about the way that life seemed to vomit itself out, some pointless set of images just spewing itself out forever and in front of my eyes and it was impossible to turn it off and impossible to find meaning in it. Meaning and death were both so alienating and that made books inaccessible, but still it was very important to read.
I was really feeling, at that time, some need to contextualise myself inside the world, to position myself as a piece of something bigger, something very fundamental. I was creating a kind of self-educational PowerPoint about different foundational concepts, Marxism, Impressionism, I was planning to cover every concept and I felt that when I was finished I would somehow be a part of things, somehow held very tightly by the world and surrounded by things I understood and could master or relate to. I really wanted to make sense in relation to the things that were around me, that was important to me.
I didn’t understand what it was that shielded me from these sorts of situations, I was grateful of course but it did worry me: was the fact that nothing bad ever happened to me linked with the fact that nothing happened to me at all. Somehow through existing I repelled action.
I kept feeling all the time that something might change and open up and I would suddenly become a part of things and really let go in the literary society and bring something great to the table.
...some kind of atmosphere which would be somehow conducive to my self-expression but it had no effect on me at all or on the room,
I sank my nails a bit into the yellow skin on the inside of my arm. It was so depressing, that I never had anything to say to anyone. I really had nothing to say about Frank O’Hara’s imaginary death or anything else, it was terrible.
I did read some Frank O’Hara and discovered that I really loved him. I really admired his nonchalance, I felt that his voice was very optimistic and positive and made distress into something which existed just casually on the side of life but which was not at all overpowering or threatening. After all the terrible things I do how amazing it is to find forgiveness and love.
I still felt that everything around me had some hidden core, I felt that the most important and central meanings were concealed and had to be effortfully unearthed. I really couldn’t wait for all those meanings to be revealed to me, I would do anything to have all of those meanings revealed.
I wanted to learn something that would shock me, something that came from someplace very far outside of myself. I was tired of learning things I could have pulled out of my own mind very easily and passively. It was really hard to think of things that might shock me like that, it was hard to think of things that were outside myself.
I nodded like I knew what it was like to have my sense of self stripped away from me by men, like I was sitting there right at that moment watching my sense of self being really dragged away from me. There it goes, my sense of self.
I felt absolutely blessed and like my life was finally about to start unfolding and revealing some beautiful core which had been promised to me all along and which was finally here: here it was, the start of life.
That was how I felt, in that moment: that being a girl opened up unbearable possibilities for being despised and denigrated, for being rejected on some painful and devastating basis, rejected for a reason I might never understand at all.
It was hard to find any kind of reason not to sit around and eat all day. All my life my body had borne no relation to the things I put inside it, it felt like I could eat anything at any time and it would really do nothing. My actions were so free of consequences.
...it was suddenly obvious that there was no danger at all, that I could be hurt but that Luke would never hurt me, that all he could do was open me and open me and that I would always be open to him, wide open and completely soft like a small trembling animal held in two hands, two hands which could crush it completely but which would not, which never would.
It was good to give up and to soften. I really did feel a change inside my body right then. I could perceive some muscles very deep inside me letting go of some resistance, of some drive to panic.
I could see that that linguistic sophistication made almost anything possible and maybe that was something I could learn, that subtlety, that potency, maybe those things could grow inside of me and make some new future possible.
I wanted to undress right there and let the cold fill every crack inside of me. I wanted to swim naked in a foreign sea somewhere, to feel the sea as it flowed into each internal channel and then to walk out onto sand, to lie down on a very clean towel or blanket and eat something natural, some orange, some peach, and be entirely alone, alone for days and days and entirely untraceable. I walked down the hill to the bus stop and imagined the feeling: total aloneness, on and on forever.
Obviously it was depressing, the fact that my feelings were so unrelatable as to be actually implausible to an entire room of people. But on some totally other level the discussion made me feel full of a sharp burning potential. I hadn’t thought the way I felt about things was unusual, I hadn’t thought I owned anything that could surprise anyone. There was a lot of myself that I could keep from people, suddenly. There was some great well of secrecy inside me, something untouchable.
I asked Luke if he would ever want to live with me instead and he said It would be too tiring, we’d be laughing all the time, how would we rest our minds and bodies. Luke phrased things very beautifully when he was trying to be funny, when he was trying to be soft on me and to distract me from meaning through language. I had no answer to his question, How would we rest our minds and bodies. I really didn’t know how we would ever be able to do that.
I took my clothes off then and stood in front of my mirror, seeing my body first as mine and then as some girl’s body, seeing my body as Luke might see it, as a body I could fuck with my own body. Neither version seemed more real or persuasive than the other in that moment, both felt plausible but neither was definitive. I lay down and reached into myself then and felt I was split open, I could plunge myself right into me and spread my fingers like a jellyfish pumping itself through water and really push at my own walls without any resistance at all, without pain, even. I lay there for a long time, pushing at my own endlessly penetrable walls.
...the whole story was quite unconvincing but my feelings and my objective reality had become so completely alienated that lying was my only means of accurately expressing myself. But I didn’t even know what kind of situation would legitimise my feelings. Only some very horrible situation, only some Trauma of the most terrible kind.
I was thinking, as Luke took those things from me, about whether each specific moment was defined by the things which were to come and the things which had already taken place, or whether each moment could take on a kind of independent existence and define itself, and live forever in a reality totally untouched by the past and by the future. I almost felt that there might be a way to take my perception in that moment and to freeze it as some self-sustaining thing, unaffected by whatever was still going to happen between me and Luke and whatever impenetrable things had already happened. Really all I wanted was Luke inside his kitchen surrounded by things to eat and drink and with the sun flung over everything so that everything was warm and clearly visible, each one of his freckles illuminated. That was all I ever wanted.
...all of these things which meant nothing to me except for him. I didn’t know how to reconcile those two thoughts: that it was impossible to transport oneself out of anywhere and that I was surrounded by things which shouted out Luke’s name eternally.
These things that I was learning were the last things that would ever be given to me. Anything else that I wanted to know I would have to seek out for myself. The knowledge wouldn’t be spontaneous, it would be some already existent part of me multiplying itself outwards. It was very strange, that this was what I was left with: a complicated drawing of the human eye, a timeline of a baby’s language learning, a theory someone had made up about symbols and meaning. These things were the last fragments of something that had once been mine.
Was I very bad at writing? That just felt like life to me, random things happening on and on. Nothing was ever allowed to be the end, some unbearable thing would happen and then some slightly less awful but still painful things would happen, then some other unbearable thing, then some other slightly bad things, on and on forever. I didn’t understand why every novel wasn’t just an endless depressing list of pointless things that happened. I gave up on my story then and went back to my room.
For almost two hours I listened to a Fiona Apple song called I Want You to Love Me and I felt as if I had written it myself, the part about how next year it’ll be clear, about how all my particles will disband and disperse, about how while I’m in this body I want you to love me, how I’ve been waiting for you to love me, just waiting on and on for you to love me. It really was true, it was so true that it almost didn’t feel real. It felt like an approximation or a huge over-simplification of something, it felt false in that way because it was so abjectly true.
In another life that would have been mine, that warm wet dissolution of the boundaries of the body.
I was still thinking about SOPHIE, I was still thinking about that death, that death caused by a desperate attempt to capture something.
It was something else that had died, something else that had been killed, I understood it as I stared into my child self’s wide face.
There was a Yoshitomo Nara postcard which said OH! MY GOD! I MISS YOU. I took that postcard down last, I let it watch me take down all the others. Oh my god I miss you, it really was true.
At one point my own hands had been enough for me, I did remember that quite clearly. At one point my own body was enough.
...moving first my feet and then my arms, letting my arms slam down, slamming my arms down, showing, with my dance, the pain that I had the capacity to realise. In another life I could have caused somebody so much pain.
I really did feel that I wanted to die but it felt ridiculous to say it, no one could possibly have any sympathy for that, it was so melodramatic. But deep within the heart of my body I did feel that wish to die. I felt already very dead, I felt that some fundamental part of me was completely dead and would never return to me.
August 26, 2025
very relatable story about first love (unrequited) and heartbreak, also how people push others away out of a fear of loss and vulnerability. How cruel people can be to the ones they care about out of self-preservation. The book also showcased the obsession which is such a marker of first loves, that one person's literal livelihood depends on it. In many ways, it was a depressing book - as the narrator experiences endless suffering both mental and physical, subjecting herself to degrading experiences and endless but ultimately unrealistic fantasies of being wanted and understood by the one she loves (not being able to believe that this isn't the case). The book portrays a dissolution of her identity and how lonely she is in the experience of this, always illustrating that there is nothing to do but sit through the unbearable, shattering experiences of this kind. It was raw, honest and unrelenting.
June 29, 2025
As a pre-psychology student I could definitely relate to some of the stuff in this book. On the romance side of things, I found it fascinating to read about the thoughts and emotions of the protagonist who is obsessively in love lol.
I was hoping for a little bit more at the end of the book as it felt a little bit anti-climatic - nonetheless, I enjoyed it :)
I was hoping for a little bit more at the end of the book as it felt a little bit anti-climatic - nonetheless, I enjoyed it :)
January 5, 2026
3.5
First read of the year was a good one. The novel was well-paced and the monologue-like narrative felt like you were part of an intimate, confessional conversation.
About first love, unrequited love, the mind, and the body.
First read of the year was a good one. The novel was well-paced and the monologue-like narrative felt like you were part of an intimate, confessional conversation.
About first love, unrequited love, the mind, and the body.
January 7, 2026
Started this morning nd finished this evening NEED I say more??? Couldn’t put it down
October 19, 2025
came for the yoshimoto nara cover, stayed for the moving story! you could not pay me to be 20 again wowieee. loved all the music and art references, it makes reading books from this decade more fun :’)
December 29, 2025
Who do I talk to if I suspect someone published my journal from 2018?
(So tender and melancholic and embarrassing. Truly lovely.)
(So tender and melancholic and embarrassing. Truly lovely.)
Read
December 29, 2025I spent a lot of this book wondering if I was enjoying it. Why does every sentence contain "really" and why is everything so …. "to me". "It really did feel that way to me." Perhaps I read this too fast because her voice overtook me and became quite nauseating. I read the last 3rd so quickly because I wanted to shake her off too. But that’s a successful novel, she’s managed to get this voice in my head and she did feel real.
Ultimately, I don’t know this woman and that wouldn’t matter, but it makes me feel sad to think she is meant to be an honest portrayal of a young woman today, as all the quotes on the back cover suggest. And as another review says, you could not PAY ME TO BE 20 YEARS OLD AGAIN whewwww
Ultimately, I don’t know this woman and that wouldn’t matter, but it makes me feel sad to think she is meant to be an honest portrayal of a young woman today, as all the quotes on the back cover suggest. And as another review says, you could not PAY ME TO BE 20 YEARS OLD AGAIN whewwww
November 26, 2025
one day one of these books will not make me want to run into a brick wall
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2025
I was so excited to read this book (just look at that cover !!). As the author herself puts it, I love a story about “vaguely disembodied cerebral girls.” It reminded me of the comfort I felt reading Batuman’s The Idiot and realizing that other people also overanalyze and overthink everything. I loved how metaphisical and philosophical this book was, yet still so simple, and how it made you feel her desperate attempt to figure out where her self began and ended - through art, lectures, people and, most importantly, learning how to exist in a body. It truly moved me. That said, there’s only so much obsession over a boy I can take, and this one pushed it a bit too far. By the end, I never wanted to read the name “Luke” again. Still, for all the reasons above, this is a very strong debut.
August 5, 2025
(3.75)
-some real get out of my head! moments- so specific in its writing but occasionally so relatable- even when it wasn’t, I enjoyed being in the narrator’s headspace, until the obsession of the later chapters (then I kind of wanted to give her a shake and tell her to get a grip)
-feel like the narrator from this and the idiot by elif batuman would get along- both authors capture a very real sense of being a young woman in all its oddness/growing pains/complexities
-some real get out of my head! moments- so specific in its writing but occasionally so relatable- even when it wasn’t, I enjoyed being in the narrator’s headspace, until the obsession of the later chapters (then I kind of wanted to give her a shake and tell her to get a grip)
-feel like the narrator from this and the idiot by elif batuman would get along- both authors capture a very real sense of being a young woman in all its oddness/growing pains/complexities
October 23, 2025
I always enjoy novels with this particular narrative style/voice. I saw lots of parts of my 20/21-year-old self in this 20/21-year-old protagonist's way of thinking and speaking and being. She is so depressed and thoughtful and sad and hopeful but ultimately hopeless. I echo other reviews' mentions of wanting something a little more climactic to happen for her at the end, but to me that desire comes from my own existential need that I had when I was 20/21-years-old rather than what actually feels right for the story. The ending was apt for her.
July 15, 2025
4-4.5/5 ⭐️
“lt was very exciting, to be speaking to someone whose thoughts and feelings I couldn't guess at all, and for a moment there I felt that that was love: that total inability to know what someone was going to say and think and feel and the constant wish to know those things, that real desperation to know and understand those things fundamentally and intuitively.” (112)
“lt was very exciting, to be speaking to someone whose thoughts and feelings I couldn't guess at all, and for a moment there I felt that that was love: that total inability to know what someone was going to say and think and feel and the constant wish to know those things, that real desperation to know and understand those things fundamentally and intuitively.” (112)
August 4, 2025
@ the idiot by elif batuman, you have a sister. This is so me 🤣 kinda overly referential to indie pop culture so I wonder how it’ll age.
October 29, 2025
hmmm maybe 2.5/5
enjoyed reading some parts of this and resonated with feeling 18 at uni but writing style/lack of plot and vv abrupt ending weren’t really for me
let it be known “a man”’s name is isaac wood 🤧
enjoyed reading some parts of this and resonated with feeling 18 at uni but writing style/lack of plot and vv abrupt ending weren’t really for me
let it be known “a man”’s name is isaac wood 🤧
December 20, 2025
Sally Rooney but more unhinged.
October 28, 2025
honestly this was just painful yearning described very beautifully but come on girl get a grip
October 5, 2025
a good book and had me engaged throughout. a little bit too over the top with her yearning/obsession though (give me a break!)
June 3, 2025
Lovely lovely book, really unique as well
August 24, 2025
Absolutely adored this. Interestingly lots of the reviews on here mention a strange or uncomfortable feeling which I really didn’t experience. I felt great joy and and great loss but never uncomfortable. I really loved all the references and reflections on art and music; I loved how the character was actually moved by them and considered all together they form a kind of mood board. This character will stay with me for a long time
June 27, 2025
saw this in waterloo bookshop and had to buy exactly the kind of book i love! i read it in one sitting on the train home and felt v pretentious and at peace 😛 luke is a twat though
August 3, 2025
this is my first 5-star read in ages so bear with me as i talk endlessly abt this book
some of yall have never had a college situationship and it shows
im JK no man has ever gotten into my brain folds like this- yet, there was a moment there where i wondered if this book was about me and honestly it still might be.
this book is vulnerable and uncomfortable in all the best ways, and relatable in all the worst ways. beautifully written, and compelling in a way these narrator-driven cerebral almost whiny books often lack.
this book weaves art and music as a storytelling device tailored to-made for a 21 year old. (think: mitski and fiona apple) it feels young, raw and real. anyone who has ever suffered a dating app will feel seen by this book.
the part that might just haunt me forever is after a date with a stranger, where our narrator stays mostly silent, she knows this man is intrigued and attracted to her, largely due to her silence. luke, on the other hand, knows her inside and out to fault and will never love her the way she wants him to. and she worries that the knowing is what makes her unlovable.
the discussion of sex and virginity is interesting and completely separate from any purity culture or religious ideologies which is rare. our narrator is an intellectualizer, in all matters but luke. sex, she sees to be this physical act, entirely independent of emotion- whereas every single minuscule movement luke makes she ascribes emotion meaning to. this is the fascinating juxtaposition that makes the book so intriguing !!!!!!!!!
i loved this book, seriously. and i am stingy with a rating but this is 5 stars
some of yall have never had a college situationship and it shows
im JK no man has ever gotten into my brain folds like this- yet, there was a moment there where i wondered if this book was about me and honestly it still might be.
this book is vulnerable and uncomfortable in all the best ways, and relatable in all the worst ways. beautifully written, and compelling in a way these narrator-driven cerebral almost whiny books often lack.
this book weaves art and music as a storytelling device tailored to-made for a 21 year old. (think: mitski and fiona apple) it feels young, raw and real. anyone who has ever suffered a dating app will feel seen by this book.
the part that might just haunt me forever is after a date with a stranger, where our narrator stays mostly silent, she knows this man is intrigued and attracted to her, largely due to her silence. luke, on the other hand, knows her inside and out to fault and will never love her the way she wants him to. and she worries that the knowing is what makes her unlovable.
the discussion of sex and virginity is interesting and completely separate from any purity culture or religious ideologies which is rare. our narrator is an intellectualizer, in all matters but luke. sex, she sees to be this physical act, entirely independent of emotion- whereas every single minuscule movement luke makes she ascribes emotion meaning to. this is the fascinating juxtaposition that makes the book so intriguing !!!!!!!!!
i loved this book, seriously. and i am stingy with a rating but this is 5 stars
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