What do you think?
Rate this book
Will There Ever Be Another You
THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS, WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE AND THE ONLY BOOK SHORTLISTED FOR BOTH THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE AND WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
The world might be in disarray, but for one young woman, the very weave of herself seems to have loosened. Time and memories pass straight through her body, she's afraid of her own floorboards, and the lyrics of 'What Is Love' play over and over in her ears. 'I'm sorry not to respond to your email,' she writes, 'but I live completely in the present now.'
Tearing through the slippery terrains of fiction and reality, the possibility for human connection seems to beckon from the other side – and with it, the chance for a blinding re-emergence into the world.
From one of our most original, inventive and prodigiously funny writers, Will There Ever Be Another You is a phosphorescent, wild and profound investigation into what keeps us alive in unprecedented times.
Praise for Patricia Lockwood and No One Is Talking About This
'Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation' Namita Gokhale
'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney
'I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book' David Sedaris
'A rare wonder . . . I was left in bits' Douglas Stuart
The world might be in disarray, but for one young woman, the very weave of herself seems to have loosened. Time and memories pass straight through her body, she's afraid of her own floorboards, and the lyrics of 'What Is Love' play over and over in her ears. 'I'm sorry not to respond to your email,' she writes, 'but I live completely in the present now.'
Tearing through the slippery terrains of fiction and reality, the possibility for human connection seems to beckon from the other side – and with it, the chance for a blinding re-emergence into the world.
From one of our most original, inventive and prodigiously funny writers, Will There Ever Be Another You is a phosphorescent, wild and profound investigation into what keeps us alive in unprecedented times.
Praise for Patricia Lockwood and No One Is Talking About This
'Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation' Namita Gokhale
'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney
'I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book' David Sedaris
'A rare wonder . . . I was left in bits' Douglas Stuart
256 pages, Hardcover
First published September 23, 2025
598 people are currently reading
16054 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 493 reviews
December 31, 2025
there will never another patricia lockwood.
so it’s a bummer that this kind of felt like an imitation.
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS was like nothing i’ve ever read. every sentence was a bit of a challenge, not readable or even immediately logical, requiring a bit of work to comprehend, but it was so rewarding — the novel was so funny, so witty and clever, so intensely emotional, and on top of all that the best thing anyone’s ever written about the internet.
this had the same reading-resistant prose, but it lacked the payoff.
lockwood notes several times that people keep telling her, and writers in general, not to write about the pandemic. she did it anyway and truth be told i groaned. it’s incredibly alarming to be a writer who has lost the grasp of language that made up her identity, and i do think more should be said on long covid (if not anything else about lockdown, please, for the love of god).
but in conveying that shock this fell short of portraying much else.
bottom line: please let this be the closest we get to patricia lockwood losing her relationship with words.
(thanks to the publisher for the copy)
so it’s a bummer that this kind of felt like an imitation.
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS was like nothing i’ve ever read. every sentence was a bit of a challenge, not readable or even immediately logical, requiring a bit of work to comprehend, but it was so rewarding — the novel was so funny, so witty and clever, so intensely emotional, and on top of all that the best thing anyone’s ever written about the internet.
this had the same reading-resistant prose, but it lacked the payoff.
lockwood notes several times that people keep telling her, and writers in general, not to write about the pandemic. she did it anyway and truth be told i groaned. it’s incredibly alarming to be a writer who has lost the grasp of language that made up her identity, and i do think more should be said on long covid (if not anything else about lockdown, please, for the love of god).
but in conveying that shock this fell short of portraying much else.
bottom line: please let this be the closest we get to patricia lockwood losing her relationship with words.
(thanks to the publisher for the copy)
August 5, 2025
A woman experiences the fallout of a mysterious illness and a fragmented mental state as she stitches together the fabric of her life and what it means to be human in this mosaic of a ‘novel’ from poet and Twitter comedian Patricia Lockwood.
WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU is a sort of follow up to her previous novel, NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS. it that was an internet novel, then you could argue this is a COVID novel. BUT, stay with me, it’s not explicitly focused on the pandemic. Instead it looks at the fallout of what happens when things happen to you, I.e. family loss, medical emergencies, mental breakdowns, and how we piece ourselves back together in an increasingly chaotic world.
I love Lockwood’s brain. I think she’s so clever and witty and sincere. But maybe in this one she was a bit too clever for me. This is the kind of book that feels like you’re purposely missing the key too; that if you don’t know what she’s referencing or about her life or her previous works, you might be at a loss. And I’ve read her previous stuff! At times, still, I was confounded. Sometimes I was fine with it because there’s such pleasure in her wordsmithing. Other times I felt frustrated and a bit annoyed because the writing felt more like an exercise in creative nonfiction that was surely cathartic for Lockwood herself but not for the novel reader. I mean: is this a novel? I don’t know.
I’m torn in my feelings over this because on one hand she’s an excellent writer and so creative (like Jenny Slate’s two memoirs which I LOVE). But still it felt needlessly obtuse to the point where it favored form over meaning, at least for this reader.
WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU is a sort of follow up to her previous novel, NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS. it that was an internet novel, then you could argue this is a COVID novel. BUT, stay with me, it’s not explicitly focused on the pandemic. Instead it looks at the fallout of what happens when things happen to you, I.e. family loss, medical emergencies, mental breakdowns, and how we piece ourselves back together in an increasingly chaotic world.
I love Lockwood’s brain. I think she’s so clever and witty and sincere. But maybe in this one she was a bit too clever for me. This is the kind of book that feels like you’re purposely missing the key too; that if you don’t know what she’s referencing or about her life or her previous works, you might be at a loss. And I’ve read her previous stuff! At times, still, I was confounded. Sometimes I was fine with it because there’s such pleasure in her wordsmithing. Other times I felt frustrated and a bit annoyed because the writing felt more like an exercise in creative nonfiction that was surely cathartic for Lockwood herself but not for the novel reader. I mean: is this a novel? I don’t know.
I’m torn in my feelings over this because on one hand she’s an excellent writer and so creative (like Jenny Slate’s two memoirs which I LOVE). But still it felt needlessly obtuse to the point where it favored form over meaning, at least for this reader.
January 6, 2026
This is the first Patricia Lockwood book I have read … and to say it is unique is an understatement.
Several times the desire to stop the book was strong however perseverance took hold and onwards …
At one point, a quick read of other reviews was required.. was something obvious being missed? No. Bewilderment prevailed with others
The plot.. and that’s the crux ..no idea really.. this a book that makes you feel as though you’ve slipped into Alice’s Wonderland.. a series of poetically described events moving between first person and third person. A portal is occasionally mentioned and that is how this book felt - a dance between portals - locations, events, ages, and all sorts of states of mind.
Autofiction is presented - autobiographical fiction ..if this is a response to Covid lockdown then it certainly is self expression in an extreme and magical form
How do you rate this type of book? There is a craft and art in the pages but if you want a linear plot or even a time slip narrative with a plot that grips then this will be a challenge.
A journey from a unique voice … baffled, bemused and bewildered but somehow intrigued
Several times the desire to stop the book was strong however perseverance took hold and onwards …
At one point, a quick read of other reviews was required.. was something obvious being missed? No. Bewilderment prevailed with others
The plot.. and that’s the crux ..no idea really.. this a book that makes you feel as though you’ve slipped into Alice’s Wonderland.. a series of poetically described events moving between first person and third person. A portal is occasionally mentioned and that is how this book felt - a dance between portals - locations, events, ages, and all sorts of states of mind.
Autofiction is presented - autobiographical fiction ..if this is a response to Covid lockdown then it certainly is self expression in an extreme and magical form
How do you rate this type of book? There is a craft and art in the pages but if you want a linear plot or even a time slip narrative with a plot that grips then this will be a challenge.
A journey from a unique voice … baffled, bemused and bewildered but somehow intrigued
May 27, 2025
I loved her previous book but I'm fully convinced this was randomly generated sentences...
August 27, 2025
Very bad. Very solipsistic. Her husband’s wound is not just a gash which must heal, but a Wound which must be wrung of all poetic resonance. Not my thing.
October 8, 2025
This just felt so slapped together. Random for the sake of being random. Directionless. Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink to see what sticks (apparently everything does, not for this reader though). And I think I’m officially over this kind of writing style.
Read
August 10, 2025Will There Ever Be Another You is a literary, character centered story mixed with a bit of autofiction. The book is an exploration of life's absurdities and is filled with existential ponderings. Patricia Lockwood is a very talented author and beautifully pieces sentences together. She perfectly encapsulates the main character’s sensory experience as well as her state of mind. Filled with fairies, Anna Karenina, changelings, sheep, and fake Cabbage Patch Kid dolls, at times I felt as if I were in a surrealist painting.
This is one of those books that I couldn't possibly rate. On the one hand, I did struggle with the nonlinear timeline as well as the alternation of the story being told from first, second, and third person. With her unique word structuring, it also took me a bit to get the hang of her writing. But on the other hand, I did find myself enjoying Will There Be Another You. Along with the beautiful prose, the story made me think and feel, which I find rarer and rarer in new releases. It's also worth mentioning that I found myself in the same predicament after reading Patricia’s 2021 release, No One Is Talking About This.
Readers who have read and enjoyed Patricia’s prior works, especially No One Is Talking About This, will love Will There Be Another You. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy weird girl fiction, plotless character driven literary works, and books with philosophical undertones.
Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood will be available on September 23. Many thanks to Riverhead Books for the gifted copy!
This is one of those books that I couldn't possibly rate. On the one hand, I did struggle with the nonlinear timeline as well as the alternation of the story being told from first, second, and third person. With her unique word structuring, it also took me a bit to get the hang of her writing. But on the other hand, I did find myself enjoying Will There Be Another You. Along with the beautiful prose, the story made me think and feel, which I find rarer and rarer in new releases. It's also worth mentioning that I found myself in the same predicament after reading Patricia’s 2021 release, No One Is Talking About This.
Readers who have read and enjoyed Patricia’s prior works, especially No One Is Talking About This, will love Will There Be Another You. I would recommend this to readers who enjoy weird girl fiction, plotless character driven literary works, and books with philosophical undertones.
Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood will be available on September 23. Many thanks to Riverhead Books for the gifted copy!
October 9, 2025
Patricia, girl……
September 17, 2025
This was my first experience with award winning author Patricia Lockwood, and it was very difficult to follow. Luckily before I requested it I saw other reviews that explained the concept behind it: that it doesn’t really follow a solid narrative arc and instead was written from the POV of someone suffering from long COVID. (Is is Autofiction? I'm not entirely sure.) It does indeed meander like poetic stream of consciousness writing, and most of it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I also didn’t know many of the names and references she mentioned. But I couldn’t stop reading it. Even though I found the text challenging, there were lovely sentences throughout and surprising humor. (Side note: I also love the cover.) As a general rule, I appreciate anything that references “The Artist is Present.” And Lockwood would bring back things late in the text that she had briefly touched upon earlier, making me realize that maybe I had been able to follow it a bit better than I realized, because I did remember those things.
This definitely won't be for everyone. It maybe even wasn't really for me, and it absolutely requires patience. There was a chapter about Anna Karenina, for example, that I had to skip over because I did not understand a single sentence. It felt like I was reading gibberish.
Every once in a while it’s nice to give my brain a workout with something like this. I’m not sure if I’ll actually retain anything from it super long-term, though. (Perhaps that kind of mimics the narrator's own consciousness in a way.) I would be curious to read something else by Lockwood if it’s written in a more coherent style. Her skill was still very apparent here.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
TW: Mention of animal death, Pandemic, Politics/Current events, Hospitalization/Wounds
This definitely won't be for everyone. It maybe even wasn't really for me, and it absolutely requires patience. There was a chapter about Anna Karenina, for example, that I had to skip over because I did not understand a single sentence. It felt like I was reading gibberish.
Every once in a while it’s nice to give my brain a workout with something like this. I’m not sure if I’ll actually retain anything from it super long-term, though. (Perhaps that kind of mimics the narrator's own consciousness in a way.) I would be curious to read something else by Lockwood if it’s written in a more coherent style. Her skill was still very apparent here.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
TW: Mention of animal death, Pandemic, Politics/Current events, Hospitalization/Wounds
October 10, 2025
If you've read any Patricia Lockwood, you will already know that she is a unique talent.
She writes in a poetic stream of consciousness that is at once eccentric, irreverent, animated, disorganised, and sways from searingly evocative to annoyingly impenetrable.
Her latest work centres around her becoming unwell during the pandemic and the way that reality seemed to pull apart during that time both bodily and mentally. As someone who was also unwell during this time period (albeit with a different illness), some of her experiences really spoke to me.
At other times, I hadn't the foggiest what she was talking about.
Maybe it would have made more sense if I'd read Anna Karenina?
My phone just tried to change Karenina to 'Karen inappropriate'. I feel Lockwood would appreciate this. She riffs off this sort of humdrum observation in spirals. Her language is often psychedelic, even before we reach the Tolstoy-on-mushrooms chapter.
The first chapter of this book was devastating. Delivered as a short story, it would have been close to perfection.
The rest of this book is a mixed bag. Some of her descriptions are so eye-wateringly brilliant I want to bottle them up. Other times, a few chapters have gone by since I last connected with the text.
If I was the sort of reader who could wander through the word forest, wafting in and out of meaning and letting a book speak to me when it feels like it, this would all be fine.
But I'm not that sort of reader. I need clarity, (or at least more frequent wafts of meaning) and there were large sections in the middle where I couldn't tell what I was meant to be getting out of it.
Lockwood is, as usual, full of dynamite brilliance. I envy her power of expression and her brave ability to put herself out there. I just wish that in her books there was more consideration of the work as a package.
I suspect that like a lot of poetic writers and artists, Lockwood goes wherever the muse takes her and that she wouldn't cede to this sort of criticism even if she agreed with it. And that kind of raw, unfiltered work will appeal to a lot of readers, even if I find it frustrating.
She writes in a poetic stream of consciousness that is at once eccentric, irreverent, animated, disorganised, and sways from searingly evocative to annoyingly impenetrable.
Her latest work centres around her becoming unwell during the pandemic and the way that reality seemed to pull apart during that time both bodily and mentally. As someone who was also unwell during this time period (albeit with a different illness), some of her experiences really spoke to me.
At other times, I hadn't the foggiest what she was talking about.
Maybe it would have made more sense if I'd read Anna Karenina?
My phone just tried to change Karenina to 'Karen inappropriate'. I feel Lockwood would appreciate this. She riffs off this sort of humdrum observation in spirals. Her language is often psychedelic, even before we reach the Tolstoy-on-mushrooms chapter.
The first chapter of this book was devastating. Delivered as a short story, it would have been close to perfection.
The rest of this book is a mixed bag. Some of her descriptions are so eye-wateringly brilliant I want to bottle them up. Other times, a few chapters have gone by since I last connected with the text.
If I was the sort of reader who could wander through the word forest, wafting in and out of meaning and letting a book speak to me when it feels like it, this would all be fine.
But I'm not that sort of reader. I need clarity, (or at least more frequent wafts of meaning) and there were large sections in the middle where I couldn't tell what I was meant to be getting out of it.
Lockwood is, as usual, full of dynamite brilliance. I envy her power of expression and her brave ability to put herself out there. I just wish that in her books there was more consideration of the work as a package.
I suspect that like a lot of poetic writers and artists, Lockwood goes wherever the muse takes her and that she wouldn't cede to this sort of criticism even if she agreed with it. And that kind of raw, unfiltered work will appeal to a lot of readers, even if I find it frustrating.
October 5, 2025
DNF. I’m really striking out lately! I get what this book is trying to do, but it is just not a very fun or interesting read. I understand the protagonist’s mind isn’t working right after her illness and she is working through that, but ultimately I have no real reason to care about her or this book. Meh.
September 20, 2025
This one is tough to review. I don't know where I land.
A woman is overcome by a mysterious illness, which both is and isn't exactly COVID. She spins into a psychosis as a result of this illness / nobody being able to completely understand her, the narrative fracturing to mirror her mental state.
The initial segment of the story, where the narrator explains how it feels to lose the body you knew, overnight - to feel "othered" by this altering, had me in tears. It was so powerfully, honestly written.
And I even understood why the writing had to become more and more obscure, from this point. The narrator feels less connected to everyone around her and so you, too, are disconnected.
But sometimes I felt a little bit too removed from the story, as a result. I would have liked if it tipped in the other direction, which I know the author is capable of because painfully vulnerable, gutting moments DO shine through.
I still think this is worth reading. And I'll always be a huge fan of Patricia Lockwood. We should reward authors for trying something new, which I think she always does! This sits kind of in the middle for me, though.
A woman is overcome by a mysterious illness, which both is and isn't exactly COVID. She spins into a psychosis as a result of this illness / nobody being able to completely understand her, the narrative fracturing to mirror her mental state.
The initial segment of the story, where the narrator explains how it feels to lose the body you knew, overnight - to feel "othered" by this altering, had me in tears. It was so powerfully, honestly written.
And I even understood why the writing had to become more and more obscure, from this point. The narrator feels less connected to everyone around her and so you, too, are disconnected.
But sometimes I felt a little bit too removed from the story, as a result. I would have liked if it tipped in the other direction, which I know the author is capable of because painfully vulnerable, gutting moments DO shine through.
I still think this is worth reading. And I'll always be a huge fan of Patricia Lockwood. We should reward authors for trying something new, which I think she always does! This sits kind of in the middle for me, though.
Want to read
January 26, 2025am I the first? this book will fuckin rip
September 3, 2025
I won this book in a Goodreads' Giveaway.
Character driven stories don’t really work for me. Personally, I need a plot to keep myself thoroughly engaged in a book.
The main character’s name was never given to us, but in this story, she is battling a confusing and debilitating illness that not only impacts her physical health, but also alters her sense of self, memory, and perception of reality, pushing her to re-evaluate what it means to be alive in a time of uncertainty. It’s about her internal struggles and her attempts to cope with the changing perceptions of her sense of self and her surroundings.
The word I would use to describe this writing style is “choppy”. We were stuck inside this strongly mentally ill patient throughout the whole book. Due to that, the author jumped around a lot, not to mention the crazy things that were going on in the patient's head.
If you like character driven stories with a “stream of consciousness” type of writing style, you should definitely pick this one up.
2.5 stars
Character driven stories don’t really work for me. Personally, I need a plot to keep myself thoroughly engaged in a book.
The main character’s name was never given to us, but in this story, she is battling a confusing and debilitating illness that not only impacts her physical health, but also alters her sense of self, memory, and perception of reality, pushing her to re-evaluate what it means to be alive in a time of uncertainty. It’s about her internal struggles and her attempts to cope with the changing perceptions of her sense of self and her surroundings.
The word I would use to describe this writing style is “choppy”. We were stuck inside this strongly mentally ill patient throughout the whole book. Due to that, the author jumped around a lot, not to mention the crazy things that were going on in the patient's head.
If you like character driven stories with a “stream of consciousness” type of writing style, you should definitely pick this one up.
2.5 stars
November 2, 2025
I did not finish this book. It was literally a fever dream that I was unable to escape. I didn’t care at all what was happening because I had no idea what was happening
Read
December 9, 2025I DID IT!!! I MADE IT THRU!!! AND ENJOYED IT!!!
July 9, 2025
A lot of readers will hate this, as it's directionless and rambling, but those of us who love Lockwood's writing will find lots to enjoy here.
September 27, 2025
The other day I was at a little brewery in Atlanta and NatGeo was on TV and there was a chunky brown bear picking up mud rocks from the floor of a lake and eating them. We wondered if we were seeing what we were seeing, but it seems in advance of hibernation, bears will eat stuff that plugs them up so they can just keep sleeping and not be having to get up to take a shit all winter. So then it made sense. I picked up the ARC of the new Patricia Lockwood in May and started reading. It made no sense. But I loved her last book, the one about Twitter frying one's brain and being too online, I mean a book referencing @dril tweets appealed to my particular derangement from which I may always be recovering, that whole "being too online" thing. Anyway, I've picked up and put down this book for months. It put me off of print for what, an entire summer? Ostensibly this book is about Long COVID rewriting her brain and her having to relearn being human or ... something? I really wanted to like it. But it's word vomit, there's just nothing here. No magic trick, no fine literature, it's just puked up words strung together for 250 pages and every time I picked it up to forge another 20 pages ahead, it made me fucking hate reading. For my birthday I'm going to give myself the gift of taking my own advice: life is too short to read a book you aren't enjoying and I shoulda dumped this one 4 months ago.
August 25, 2025
I love an experimental plot. I can drift aimlessly along with the meerest whiff of a narrative arc. Simply just the vibe will often do. I'll think, "I don't know what I'm reading, but I like it" or "I am not sure I like this yet, but I'm intrigued".
I really liked the first chapter of this, the family trip to Scotland, but the rest of Part One is so difficult to read. No two sentences go together. It's like someone ripped up a manuscript and some careless other person sellotaped them back together.
I'm parking this for now.
I really liked the first chapter of this, the family trip to Scotland, but the rest of Part One is so difficult to read. No two sentences go together. It's like someone ripped up a manuscript and some careless other person sellotaped them back together.
I'm parking this for now.
December 9, 2025
3.5 ⭐
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘩
𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧
𝘐 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘮𝘺 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘯
𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘸𝘯...
- Shake It Out, Florence + The Machine
𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘵.
- ritareadthat (hi, 👋🏻 that's me)
I feel these quotes, the first being song lyrics from The Queen (Florence) and the second being myself (yes, I'm quoting myself), epitomize the core subject of 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘉𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘠𝘰𝘶 by Patricia Lockwood: mental instability as a result of a long-term chronic physical illness. Let's explore this further, shall we?
There are two things that will give women the label of "mad" quicker than anything else—genuinely being afflicted with a mental illness of any sort or, alternatively, experiencing a chronic physical illness. Historically classified as "female hysteria," women were exposed to all sorts of horrific courses of treatment over the years, most of these thankfully now being obsolete. For clarification, the following methods of "corrective treatments" were not just performed on women, but women did constitute the high majority of recipients—trepanation, exorcism, sterilization, bloodletting, electroshock therapy, lobotomy, and insulin shock therapy. If you are unfortunate enough today to garner comorbid diagnoses of both the physical as well as the mental varieties, well, then you are just a downright lunatic. I jest. Sort of.
Patricia Lockwood takes a crack at losing your mind, identity, and creativity after a bout with a long-term illness (it is based on the author's own battle with long Covid.) The unnamed narrator is a writer who falls ill while simultaneously grieving a death in the family. We follow her as she spirals, she is lost in confused tangents, she sits on benches for hours trying to make sense of things, and she can't write—she is involuntarily relinquishing her mind to her symptoms. Lockwood elucidates multiple long-Covid-type symptoms throughout, highly reminding me of 𝘔𝘺 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 by Marta Sans. This book is abstract at best, but don't allow this to deter you from reading it. There's a trick to getting through it.
Do not enter into a relationship with this book with the intent to try and make sense of it as one would for a plot-driven narration, for in this endeavor you will surely fail. This is best observed as a series of passages, reflections, and vignettes, each one separate from the next. It's actually stated as a combination of memoir, poetry, and literary criticism—the author is definitely taking liberties with form, which I can appreciate, as it is mimicking the symptoms she is experiencing. Nothing makes sense in her world, so why should the writing make sense? If you approach it in this manner, appreciating each passage or short chapter as its own entity, you will prevail in the ability to grasp the somewhat delusional ramblings. The concept is brilliant, actually.
The book starts out semi-cohesive, then as the narrator starts to spiral after her sickness, the passages become more abstract and delusional. We do circle back around towards the end with a return to a modified, yet semi-cohesive state as before. She has been altered, though, surely, and is still struggling with her autonomy as well as grappling with her desire to be well again.
This is humorous at times, quiet at times, and yes, raving mad at times. I will admit some things were a reach, even for me, and I did find myself confused with certain passages, but I think this was the point. I still believe this is an important read, even though I admittedly didn't "get" all of it myself.
𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞:
When you lose your self-agency as a result of being trapped within your own mind, how do you proceed with daily life? How do you get back to that autonomy you so freely took advantage of?
These are some deep ones. I'm actually working on this exact subject RN with my therapist. I have no answers to these questions for you currently.
One last thing that came to mind when writing this review was this: women who write in this manner, similar to Ms. Lockwood—abstract and somewhat incoherent—are often classified in the "stark raving mad" category. While the context is a tad different in our book—a madness resulting from a physical illness—the causation, I believe, is secondary.
While Lockwood herself does not have a mental illness, what she experienced symptomatically during long Covid mimicked that of mental illness at times. After thinking about that, it took me down this road...
Just this year alone I have read works by Leonora Carrington, Jennifer Dawson, and Tezer Ozlu—all with books written in a similar fashion. (Granted, all of these books were told from the viewpoint of women that are being institutionalized, but the writing styles and subject matter are all very similar.) One could classify all of these women as "mad."
Historically in the world of the patriarchy, female hysteria or madness led to women being institutionalized and/or being faced with innumerable societal stigmas. Just a few examples of female authors who fall into this categorization: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Zelda Fitzgerald, Anne Sexton, and Leonora Carrington.
In comparison, the male counterparts are looked upon as geniuses; their mental health issues were accepted as either known "addictions" or "controversial traits" or as "poor devils" or were just simply swept under the table. These famous male literary figures came to mind: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and Leo Tolstoy.
I am surely opening that can of proverbial worms here, but am I wrong? I think not. I don't write this to diminish the importance or genius of ANY of the authors mentioned above, female or male. I'm just rambling and poking at that historical wound of misogyny and inequality, no biggie. Take it as you will.
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘩
𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧
𝘐 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘮𝘺 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘯
𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘸𝘯...
- Shake It Out, Florence + The Machine
𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘵.
- ritareadthat (hi, 👋🏻 that's me)
I feel these quotes, the first being song lyrics from The Queen (Florence) and the second being myself (yes, I'm quoting myself), epitomize the core subject of 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘉𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘠𝘰𝘶 by Patricia Lockwood: mental instability as a result of a long-term chronic physical illness. Let's explore this further, shall we?
There are two things that will give women the label of "mad" quicker than anything else—genuinely being afflicted with a mental illness of any sort or, alternatively, experiencing a chronic physical illness. Historically classified as "female hysteria," women were exposed to all sorts of horrific courses of treatment over the years, most of these thankfully now being obsolete. For clarification, the following methods of "corrective treatments" were not just performed on women, but women did constitute the high majority of recipients—trepanation, exorcism, sterilization, bloodletting, electroshock therapy, lobotomy, and insulin shock therapy. If you are unfortunate enough today to garner comorbid diagnoses of both the physical as well as the mental varieties, well, then you are just a downright lunatic. I jest. Sort of.
Patricia Lockwood takes a crack at losing your mind, identity, and creativity after a bout with a long-term illness (it is based on the author's own battle with long Covid.) The unnamed narrator is a writer who falls ill while simultaneously grieving a death in the family. We follow her as she spirals, she is lost in confused tangents, she sits on benches for hours trying to make sense of things, and she can't write—she is involuntarily relinquishing her mind to her symptoms. Lockwood elucidates multiple long-Covid-type symptoms throughout, highly reminding me of 𝘔𝘺 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 by Marta Sans. This book is abstract at best, but don't allow this to deter you from reading it. There's a trick to getting through it.
Do not enter into a relationship with this book with the intent to try and make sense of it as one would for a plot-driven narration, for in this endeavor you will surely fail. This is best observed as a series of passages, reflections, and vignettes, each one separate from the next. It's actually stated as a combination of memoir, poetry, and literary criticism—the author is definitely taking liberties with form, which I can appreciate, as it is mimicking the symptoms she is experiencing. Nothing makes sense in her world, so why should the writing make sense? If you approach it in this manner, appreciating each passage or short chapter as its own entity, you will prevail in the ability to grasp the somewhat delusional ramblings. The concept is brilliant, actually.
The book starts out semi-cohesive, then as the narrator starts to spiral after her sickness, the passages become more abstract and delusional. We do circle back around towards the end with a return to a modified, yet semi-cohesive state as before. She has been altered, though, surely, and is still struggling with her autonomy as well as grappling with her desire to be well again.
This is humorous at times, quiet at times, and yes, raving mad at times. I will admit some things were a reach, even for me, and I did find myself confused with certain passages, but I think this was the point. I still believe this is an important read, even though I admittedly didn't "get" all of it myself.
𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞:
When you lose your self-agency as a result of being trapped within your own mind, how do you proceed with daily life? How do you get back to that autonomy you so freely took advantage of?
These are some deep ones. I'm actually working on this exact subject RN with my therapist. I have no answers to these questions for you currently.
One last thing that came to mind when writing this review was this: women who write in this manner, similar to Ms. Lockwood—abstract and somewhat incoherent—are often classified in the "stark raving mad" category. While the context is a tad different in our book—a madness resulting from a physical illness—the causation, I believe, is secondary.
While Lockwood herself does not have a mental illness, what she experienced symptomatically during long Covid mimicked that of mental illness at times. After thinking about that, it took me down this road...
Just this year alone I have read works by Leonora Carrington, Jennifer Dawson, and Tezer Ozlu—all with books written in a similar fashion. (Granted, all of these books were told from the viewpoint of women that are being institutionalized, but the writing styles and subject matter are all very similar.) One could classify all of these women as "mad."
Historically in the world of the patriarchy, female hysteria or madness led to women being institutionalized and/or being faced with innumerable societal stigmas. Just a few examples of female authors who fall into this categorization: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Zelda Fitzgerald, Anne Sexton, and Leonora Carrington.
In comparison, the male counterparts are looked upon as geniuses; their mental health issues were accepted as either known "addictions" or "controversial traits" or as "poor devils" or were just simply swept under the table. These famous male literary figures came to mind: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and Leo Tolstoy.
I am surely opening that can of proverbial worms here, but am I wrong? I think not. I don't write this to diminish the importance or genius of ANY of the authors mentioned above, female or male. I'm just rambling and poking at that historical wound of misogyny and inequality, no biggie. Take it as you will.
January 13, 2026
But the soul is a floor. It is there to bear us up and keep us standing, not merely to be clean.
▴▴▴
while i have adored patricia lockwood's other books, i was apprehensive when i saw this one getting such poor ratings.
upon finishing it, i want to ask - did y'all not read no one is talking about this? are you really surprised that lockwood is spinning disjointed, bewildering, incandescent stream of consciousness? luminous abstraction is her jam!
this book has lockwood's classic intellectual absurdity, peppered with wicked humor, now with an additional dose of delirium.
i will admit that it is challenging - it's not a light or easy read. the reader is thrown into formless chaos, and it's a weird, directionless ride. for me, stream of consciousness is like poetry - there's nothing to do but soldier on, keep reading even if you don't quite understand, and have faith that it will become easier to digest as your mind gets used to it.
though lockwood wrote this book in a whirlwind state of mind while afflicted with long covid, it's not purely an illness novel. every chapter is a piece unto itself, each covering a different subject or theme (and for a few of them, i couldn't be quite sure what they were about). these pieces also have threads running through them that reference one another as the book moseys on.
the chapter breaks really save the book, providing some necessary structure. some sections are tiresome and lost me completely (like the one about reading anna karenina on shrooms). the most inscrutable chapters were my least favorites, but i gave myself permission to skim.
other chapters are wonderful, deliciously funny, bitterly sad. i loved the pieces about her family trip to scotland, her intense brain fog during long covid, the aftermath of the publication of no one is talking about this, her husband's near death bowel obstruction, her family's genealogy, her foray into silversmithing, and the discovery of a new cryptid (the mangro).
also, after devouring priestdaddy a few years ago, it's so fun to revisit the outrageous drama of the lockwood family. i love the way she paints them, their expressive personalities, and all their weird family lore.
i certainly didn't understand all of this, but i still ate it up!
And what was the thing we had believed about Monet? "That he was a frog," her husband had said; only a frog would know some of the things about lily pads that he knew.
September 30, 2025
So singular, so surprising, so beautiful, there really is nothing else like her, ever. The idea that this is a novel kind of falls apart in the last quarter but I don't care and you won't either. Lockwood's writing is so unexpected and so sharp, it's funny and silly, it's serious and strange. The short chapters at the end are really just her experimenting with long poetry, you can feel it in the lyrical sway, the intent of every word. Nothing is out of place. Everything has a job. Sometimes these sentences don't "make sense," like the world or her or both are tripping face and she just wrote it all down. It's druggy while being sober. It's a COVID brain in retrospect. It's meta, fascinating, and worth your time just to dip into her mind. Poet novelists are precious. To borrow the best phrase I've ever heard, from Donna Masini: Patricia Lockwood "gives good sentence." I'd follow her anywhere. You should too.
October 8, 2025
I was head-over-heels in love with this book until about the 80% mark, at which point I fell out of love for reasons I can only assume were more intrinsic to me than the book. This made me want to reread everything by the author and I talked about the book so much that I was kind of shocked/horrified by people close to me who hadn't read Priestdaddy and I ended up recommending that a bunch more times. I can see this isn't the place to start with Lockwood, but as always it is a delight to be in her company. My favorite themes were reading Russian literature and if it is possible for anyone to understand anyone else. Some favorite lines, from my kindle highlights that for the first time ever aren't showing up here in a way that only seems aligned with the absurdity of experience (AND these are all from after the first third, which I desperately read within Libby and those highlights are hidden somewhere in those depths!):
- "“No,” he says, “but you did talk about having synesthesia. You said you saw ice cubes every time you read the word ‘refrigerator,’ and every time you heard a fife, you thought of the Revolutionary War. I don’t think that’s synesthesia,” he says after a moment. “I think that’s just knowing what words mean.”"
-thought about this one while a friend was traveling to Lyon and I was having related thoughts: "In short, I came to a stop at a pâté de Lyon. Lion paste, I thought with a witty smile….” Lion paste!"
- "“You’re playing that good good music,” a man called out to me at Fisherman’s Walk, and I made the eheherrherr sound that I now made when strangers spoke to me, a little closer to real language this time, and scampered ranchously down to the lip of the water."
- "Also I had invented the word ranchously. Incredible that someone had been able to write beautifully, philosophically, even ranchously about this experience."
- "I saw a bright blue tail disappearing into the cat’s mouth. Christ, another skink."
- "And the word ruble. A cube of cool raw potato in the mouth."
- "Patches of the air moved, as if the Predator were jumping from branch to branch."
- "Not knowing what was appropriate for the occasion, I myself had chosen a sloth halter and a kind of baby overall, and was carrying a little trash bag as a purse."
- I still have mixed feelings about Lockwood's father, but this book made me appreciate her mother: "This was one of her mother’s sentences; delivered of it, she then left to eat lunch for four hours. No one knew where she went at these times—through a wormhole, into the other world? It was a philosophical question, like peekaboo."
- "A Benzedrine, a black coffee, a walk in the woods; then lunch and a nap and the proof woke up solved. Pringo, she thought, though that was not quite the word."
- "“This is why you can’t grind,” I told him. I had once tried to teach a Belgian man to grind at a party, but his body wasn’t capable of it. In place of hips he seemed to have a filing cabinet. So too my husband"
- great shoutout to Pnin: "In one corner of the classroom, the tumbler was always going, like the earth. It made things bright, little BBs in a wash of soap. Kim had to feed it things, like Pnin and the washing machine."
- great shoutout to TMNT: "I had chosen the little brain in the man suit, Krang, who was always crying in a horrible voice, MY BODY!"
- nice William Morris shoutout: "His cheekbones came closer and closer. There was a photograph of his grandmother standing on a porch in Oklahoma, like a skull looking out through a William Morris pattern."
- "“No,” he says, “but you did talk about having synesthesia. You said you saw ice cubes every time you read the word ‘refrigerator,’ and every time you heard a fife, you thought of the Revolutionary War. I don’t think that’s synesthesia,” he says after a moment. “I think that’s just knowing what words mean.”"
-thought about this one while a friend was traveling to Lyon and I was having related thoughts: "In short, I came to a stop at a pâté de Lyon. Lion paste, I thought with a witty smile….” Lion paste!"
- "“You’re playing that good good music,” a man called out to me at Fisherman’s Walk, and I made the eheherrherr sound that I now made when strangers spoke to me, a little closer to real language this time, and scampered ranchously down to the lip of the water."
- "Also I had invented the word ranchously. Incredible that someone had been able to write beautifully, philosophically, even ranchously about this experience."
- "I saw a bright blue tail disappearing into the cat’s mouth. Christ, another skink."
- "And the word ruble. A cube of cool raw potato in the mouth."
- "Patches of the air moved, as if the Predator were jumping from branch to branch."
- "Not knowing what was appropriate for the occasion, I myself had chosen a sloth halter and a kind of baby overall, and was carrying a little trash bag as a purse."
- I still have mixed feelings about Lockwood's father, but this book made me appreciate her mother: "This was one of her mother’s sentences; delivered of it, she then left to eat lunch for four hours. No one knew where she went at these times—through a wormhole, into the other world? It was a philosophical question, like peekaboo."
- "A Benzedrine, a black coffee, a walk in the woods; then lunch and a nap and the proof woke up solved. Pringo, she thought, though that was not quite the word."
- "“This is why you can’t grind,” I told him. I had once tried to teach a Belgian man to grind at a party, but his body wasn’t capable of it. In place of hips he seemed to have a filing cabinet. So too my husband"
- great shoutout to Pnin: "In one corner of the classroom, the tumbler was always going, like the earth. It made things bright, little BBs in a wash of soap. Kim had to feed it things, like Pnin and the washing machine."
- great shoutout to TMNT: "I had chosen the little brain in the man suit, Krang, who was always crying in a horrible voice, MY BODY!"
- nice William Morris shoutout: "His cheekbones came closer and closer. There was a photograph of his grandmother standing on a porch in Oklahoma, like a skull looking out through a William Morris pattern."
January 4, 2026
like reading a very complicated madlibs
------------------------
Thank you riverhead for the arc
My immediate thought after finishing this was…that felt like reading someone’s Madlibs. Sure, it’s maybe genius level Madlibs, but it still felt disjointed, confusing, and weirdly unemotional. I’ve found myself not being able to explain the book to friends, just kinda rambling on, not making much sense, and finishing with a face like 😬
Now that I think about it, this is perfectly fitting for this novel.
Before anyone asks, I read and loved NOITAT. I immediately connected with that book and how Lockwood mirrors the fracture between online life and “real” life; heartbreak and grief can cleave your two worlds. I never understood the confusion or the hate towards it, I thought it was genius especially how it combined humor with seriousness.
Maybe the idea of fractures still works with this novel as my interest and connection ebbed and flowed.
Part 1 sucked me in as I realized it was a loose sequel of sorts to NOITAT. Here we see the narrator dealing with grief and illness. Part 2 became a wall I couldn’t climb over, putting a stop to my reading for almost two months. TL:DR this section bogs the whole book down
Flipping through it now I keep questioning my sanity: did I really read this?
There was a lot of Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Cabbage Patch Kids, and I only really cared about one of those. There were references I never clocked; jokes that just didn’t land. There was a lot on writing and fame, as the narrator goes to London for a book prize and is also working on a tv adaptation of one of her books. Sentences here broke my brain (if you can’t tell from this review). I can understand on a logical level why it’s written this way - the narrator is suffering from Covid and her memory and focus are garbled. There are mushrooms involved that clearly didn’t help lol. The writing just becomes too dense and disparate. Narrative arc? I’ll take a sentence or paragraph arc! I shouldn’t have to celebrate every time I understand something! What was real and what was imagined? Who knows. Maybe this just shows how effective her writing about long covid is? Am I making excuses?
I feel like I’m running around in circles just to get my point across and clearly failing.
I somehow, finally, broke through and made it to Part 3, where it gets back to the more personal. Her husband has multiple surgeries, nearly dying, and they see themselves as ‘Disaster People’. As someone who has lived through the chaos of constant heartaches and emergencies and has asked life ‘isn’t this a bit too much?’, I finally found something to connect with. Lockwood is so good at capturing the absurdity of life and illness. Unfortunately we didn’t stay here long, as Patricia signs up for a welding class as therapy and then starts traveling again.
There are moments of beauty to be found here (when it hits, it hits), but the book's abstruseness makes these hard to come by. Look, I see the irony in not connecting with a book about human connection, but I have to be honest with how my patience ran thin (I was fighting for my life at times). I would say let the book wash over you, maybe read it as poetry, and if you’re lucky you’ll find some points to hold on to.
------------------------
Thank you riverhead for the arc
My immediate thought after finishing this was…that felt like reading someone’s Madlibs. Sure, it’s maybe genius level Madlibs, but it still felt disjointed, confusing, and weirdly unemotional. I’ve found myself not being able to explain the book to friends, just kinda rambling on, not making much sense, and finishing with a face like 😬
Now that I think about it, this is perfectly fitting for this novel.
Before anyone asks, I read and loved NOITAT. I immediately connected with that book and how Lockwood mirrors the fracture between online life and “real” life; heartbreak and grief can cleave your two worlds. I never understood the confusion or the hate towards it, I thought it was genius especially how it combined humor with seriousness.
Maybe the idea of fractures still works with this novel as my interest and connection ebbed and flowed.
Part 1 sucked me in as I realized it was a loose sequel of sorts to NOITAT. Here we see the narrator dealing with grief and illness. Part 2 became a wall I couldn’t climb over, putting a stop to my reading for almost two months. TL:DR this section bogs the whole book down
Flipping through it now I keep questioning my sanity: did I really read this?
There was a lot of Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Cabbage Patch Kids, and I only really cared about one of those. There were references I never clocked; jokes that just didn’t land. There was a lot on writing and fame, as the narrator goes to London for a book prize and is also working on a tv adaptation of one of her books. Sentences here broke my brain (if you can’t tell from this review). I can understand on a logical level why it’s written this way - the narrator is suffering from Covid and her memory and focus are garbled. There are mushrooms involved that clearly didn’t help lol. The writing just becomes too dense and disparate. Narrative arc? I’ll take a sentence or paragraph arc! I shouldn’t have to celebrate every time I understand something! What was real and what was imagined? Who knows. Maybe this just shows how effective her writing about long covid is? Am I making excuses?
I feel like I’m running around in circles just to get my point across and clearly failing.
I somehow, finally, broke through and made it to Part 3, where it gets back to the more personal. Her husband has multiple surgeries, nearly dying, and they see themselves as ‘Disaster People’. As someone who has lived through the chaos of constant heartaches and emergencies and has asked life ‘isn’t this a bit too much?’, I finally found something to connect with. Lockwood is so good at capturing the absurdity of life and illness. Unfortunately we didn’t stay here long, as Patricia signs up for a welding class as therapy and then starts traveling again.
There are moments of beauty to be found here (when it hits, it hits), but the book's abstruseness makes these hard to come by. Look, I see the irony in not connecting with a book about human connection, but I have to be honest with how my patience ran thin (I was fighting for my life at times). I would say let the book wash over you, maybe read it as poetry, and if you’re lucky you’ll find some points to hold on to.
October 7, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5. Thanks so much to @riverheadbooks for the advance copy!
This is a unique and challenging read. I have seen this “novel” compared to Ulysses by James Joyce, and I do see the similarities! Like Joyce, Lockwood writes in a highly experimental, stream of consciousness style that includes countless cultural references that the reader may not be familiar with, as well as references to events from her own life that seemingly only Lockwood herself would know or understand. It sometimes feels like she’s being cryptic on purpose, and this aspect was actually what I found most frustrating about Ulysses, which I ultimately ended up loving.
Ok, you say, but what is the plot? Ha! Good one. I think the “story” here is a little bit loose, a little bit “auto-fictiony,” or maybe I just haven’t gleaned it fully. The title refers to the Time magazine cover of Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal that was cloned. Lockwood feels like her illness (long Covid) has turned her into a different person, another her, so to speak. She calls herself a changeling, and then in another moment, wonders if her father will recognize her because she has become a rottweiler, ready to strike. She experiences bizarre symptoms, the medical professionals can’t figure out what’s wrong with her, and she starts to lose her grip on reality. This must have felt incredibly chaotic for her, and that chaos and helplessness really comes through in the structure of the text. We then have a section in the middle where she experiments with taking mushrooms as a cure, with the only effect being that she becomes obsessed with Anna Karenina, which she describes in detail. And then we have a section where her husband becomes seriously ill, and she becomes his caregiver, and we come full circle.
Lockwood mentions the idea that writing about being ill, and in fact, just the act of being ill, can feel self-indulgent. And in some ways, I do think that this work comes off as self-indulgent. What redeems it is that Lockwood is hilarious and very witty and she is also an amazingly talented writer. I dog-eared the hell out of this book! I’m glad I waited a week after finishing to write my review, because like Joyce’s masterpiece, this piece has definitely grown on me, and who knows where I will land with more time.
I would love to hear from you if you decide to pick this up!
This is a unique and challenging read. I have seen this “novel” compared to Ulysses by James Joyce, and I do see the similarities! Like Joyce, Lockwood writes in a highly experimental, stream of consciousness style that includes countless cultural references that the reader may not be familiar with, as well as references to events from her own life that seemingly only Lockwood herself would know or understand. It sometimes feels like she’s being cryptic on purpose, and this aspect was actually what I found most frustrating about Ulysses, which I ultimately ended up loving.
Ok, you say, but what is the plot? Ha! Good one. I think the “story” here is a little bit loose, a little bit “auto-fictiony,” or maybe I just haven’t gleaned it fully. The title refers to the Time magazine cover of Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal that was cloned. Lockwood feels like her illness (long Covid) has turned her into a different person, another her, so to speak. She calls herself a changeling, and then in another moment, wonders if her father will recognize her because she has become a rottweiler, ready to strike. She experiences bizarre symptoms, the medical professionals can’t figure out what’s wrong with her, and she starts to lose her grip on reality. This must have felt incredibly chaotic for her, and that chaos and helplessness really comes through in the structure of the text. We then have a section in the middle where she experiments with taking mushrooms as a cure, with the only effect being that she becomes obsessed with Anna Karenina, which she describes in detail. And then we have a section where her husband becomes seriously ill, and she becomes his caregiver, and we come full circle.
Lockwood mentions the idea that writing about being ill, and in fact, just the act of being ill, can feel self-indulgent. And in some ways, I do think that this work comes off as self-indulgent. What redeems it is that Lockwood is hilarious and very witty and she is also an amazingly talented writer. I dog-eared the hell out of this book! I’m glad I waited a week after finishing to write my review, because like Joyce’s masterpiece, this piece has definitely grown on me, and who knows where I will land with more time.
I would love to hear from you if you decide to pick this up!
November 3, 2025
DNF - popped my “book club gold star” cherry for this (rip)
Sorry girl - I’m actually super interested in what happened here, and I’m also interested in how she’s telling it. She lost me on two fronts: the primary being an implied requirement that the reader must be In On The Lockwood Lore (I was not). In combination with the surreal and dreamlike storytelling, constant reference to Lockwood’s past writing, interviews, tweets, family members, etc were bound to leave me confused and - honestly - a bit bored.
Second bone to pick is with the usual question - “all this stuff is quite intriguing, but what do you make of it? Where is it going?”
Finally, a personal issue. The further I get from my grad school diploma, the less interested I am in the thrill of recognizing the literary/art/theory name-drop in a novel. I call this a personal problem because I’m probably just bitter about becoming uncultured and stupid since departing said grad school.
All the best to Miss Lockwood; I will still be reading priestdaddy!
(Friends on goodreads - is there any way to rate this book without counting it toward my “read” list?)
Sorry girl - I’m actually super interested in what happened here, and I’m also interested in how she’s telling it. She lost me on two fronts: the primary being an implied requirement that the reader must be In On The Lockwood Lore (I was not). In combination with the surreal and dreamlike storytelling, constant reference to Lockwood’s past writing, interviews, tweets, family members, etc were bound to leave me confused and - honestly - a bit bored.
Second bone to pick is with the usual question - “all this stuff is quite intriguing, but what do you make of it? Where is it going?”
Finally, a personal issue. The further I get from my grad school diploma, the less interested I am in the thrill of recognizing the literary/art/theory name-drop in a novel. I call this a personal problem because I’m probably just bitter about becoming uncultured and stupid since departing said grad school.
All the best to Miss Lockwood; I will still be reading priestdaddy!
(Friends on goodreads - is there any way to rate this book without counting it toward my “read” list?)
Read
June 24, 2025I read this book because I wanted to read something different……. And this was definitely……. different.
November 27, 2025
weird. but I love weird.
June 24, 2025
Will There Ever Be Another You is a new autofiction novel from Patricia Lockwood, focused around health and art, human connection and the connection between words in your brain. Written in sections that move rapidly between topics and ideas, it's almost impossible to describe this book in any normal summary, but it is densely packed with allusions and jokes alongside explorations of chronic illness, grief, and the line between fiction and reality.
I really wanted to get this book more than I did. When I did recognise who Lockwood was talking about (Susanna Clarke being one example) or when I got a joke (I loved the reference to her cat being carceral, after Lockwood's infamous tweet about her cat Miette), it was thrilling. I've read No One Is Talking About This, Priestdaddy, and also some of Lockwood's poetry, and I enjoyed those (especially her poetry), but I found Will There Ever Be Another You just so disparate that whilst there were parts I felt were engaging, other parts I struggled to get through. In that way, it is pretty effective to get across one of Lockwood's major themes, exploring the effects of illness on your brain and mental processes.
Some of the sections where I felt like I was getting into it were the first part with its hazy picture of grief and travel and the section about her husband's surgery and the idea of his 'Wound'. Other parts felt like I needed to know more of the references to get it (for example, there's a section about Anna Karenina which I've only read when I was 17, many years ago, and it felt like I needed to remember it better).
I feel like if I reread No One Is Talking About This and maybe her other works and articles about her, I could perhaps reread Will There Ever Be Another You and get it better. I liked that the different parts and sections meant that I didn't need to always follow a previous section to dive into another (again, interesting as an idea about mental processes). However, I just know that I missed a lot and I'm sure other people will be able to get a lot more from the book than I could. Regardless, I found it a fascinating example of writing yourself into fiction, and doing it in a way that really does not feel like straightforward memoir.
I really wanted to get this book more than I did. When I did recognise who Lockwood was talking about (Susanna Clarke being one example) or when I got a joke (I loved the reference to her cat being carceral, after Lockwood's infamous tweet about her cat Miette), it was thrilling. I've read No One Is Talking About This, Priestdaddy, and also some of Lockwood's poetry, and I enjoyed those (especially her poetry), but I found Will There Ever Be Another You just so disparate that whilst there were parts I felt were engaging, other parts I struggled to get through. In that way, it is pretty effective to get across one of Lockwood's major themes, exploring the effects of illness on your brain and mental processes.
Some of the sections where I felt like I was getting into it were the first part with its hazy picture of grief and travel and the section about her husband's surgery and the idea of his 'Wound'. Other parts felt like I needed to know more of the references to get it (for example, there's a section about Anna Karenina which I've only read when I was 17, many years ago, and it felt like I needed to remember it better).
I feel like if I reread No One Is Talking About This and maybe her other works and articles about her, I could perhaps reread Will There Ever Be Another You and get it better. I liked that the different parts and sections meant that I didn't need to always follow a previous section to dive into another (again, interesting as an idea about mental processes). However, I just know that I missed a lot and I'm sure other people will be able to get a lot more from the book than I could. Regardless, I found it a fascinating example of writing yourself into fiction, and doing it in a way that really does not feel like straightforward memoir.
October 28, 2025
I loved No One Is Talking About This. Will There Ever Be Another You is... hard to love.
I do have a bit of a grand theory of art, which is embarrassing so I won't get into it much. But as a general rule, I'm more interested in what happens in the space between the text and the reader than I am the space between the text and the author. This is a book (hard to call it a novel) where the drama defiantly occurs in the space between the text and the author. Lockwood is trying to pin her months of brain fog on the page without giving it any form or coherence that would undo the brain fog's formlessness and incoherence. She may have succeeded at that goal, but the end result is not particularly readable.
That said, there are individual segments that worked. The opening sequence--prior to the onset of the brain fog--is good, and is basically an epilogue to No One Is Talking About This. I liked the part where she "reads Anna Karenina so hard she almost dies." This did give me the sense, though, that she's stuck, not in the Covid Era, but in the 2010s, where "mystic chungus" was still a conceivable type of person one could be.
I do have a bit of a grand theory of art, which is embarrassing so I won't get into it much. But as a general rule, I'm more interested in what happens in the space between the text and the reader than I am the space between the text and the author. This is a book (hard to call it a novel) where the drama defiantly occurs in the space between the text and the author. Lockwood is trying to pin her months of brain fog on the page without giving it any form or coherence that would undo the brain fog's formlessness and incoherence. She may have succeeded at that goal, but the end result is not particularly readable.
That said, there are individual segments that worked. The opening sequence--prior to the onset of the brain fog--is good, and is basically an epilogue to No One Is Talking About This. I liked the part where she "reads Anna Karenina so hard she almost dies." This did give me the sense, though, that she's stuck, not in the Covid Era, but in the 2010s, where "mystic chungus" was still a conceivable type of person one could be.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 493 reviews