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Touch Grass
When her consciousness starts spontaneously ejecting from her body, Charlie becomes the first known case of a bizarre new phenomenon – and the unwilling centre of a global crisis.
And an immortal sheep might be the key to everything.
As disembodiment spreads, corporations celebrate it, governments fear it, and Charlie can’t decide whether she’s losing herself or finally escaping. But the memories she worked so hard to delete won’t stay gone, and the only way to survive a world splitting at the seams may be to reclaim the self she tried to erase.
Wry and inventive, Touch Grass explores identity, consent and the hilariously messy business of being a friend, sister and person – especially when someone keeps editing the footnotes.
And an immortal sheep might be the key to everything.
As disembodiment spreads, corporations celebrate it, governments fear it, and Charlie can’t decide whether she’s losing herself or finally escaping. But the memories she worked so hard to delete won’t stay gone, and the only way to survive a world splitting at the seams may be to reclaim the self she tried to erase.
Wry and inventive, Touch Grass explores identity, consent and the hilariously messy business of being a friend, sister and person – especially when someone keeps editing the footnotes.
313 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 2, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 6, 2026
At first I didn’t think this book was for me, but boy was it just what I needed. A book that got me thinking about the future of our world, AI, and what it means to be human and the incessant need to constantly start new. How far is too far?
We follow Charlie who experiences disembodiment. Periods of time she cannot control when her consciousness leaves her body. And it seems to start a world phenomena which the wrong people try to take advantage of. Charlie works at a place called “Fresh Start” which gives the client what they desire. A fresh start. Erasing their presence until people genuinely cannot ever remember that person existing.
A very interesting read that will leave you thinking and fearing for the future of our society.
We follow Charlie who experiences disembodiment. Periods of time she cannot control when her consciousness leaves her body. And it seems to start a world phenomena which the wrong people try to take advantage of. Charlie works at a place called “Fresh Start” which gives the client what they desire. A fresh start. Erasing their presence until people genuinely cannot ever remember that person existing.
A very interesting read that will leave you thinking and fearing for the future of our society.
Did Not Finish
June 9, 2026Didn’t like all the rabbit killing
September 11, 2026
I liked where this was going at the beginning but it lost me around the half way mark :( This may have been one that needed to be physically read rather than audioed, because it got quite hard to follow which certainly didn't help with the already confusing nature of the story. The premise of being able to remove your presence from the internet and how that interacts with people's memories IRL was really interesting though and in general this book was just so strange but I liked the strangeness?
July 18, 2026
4⭐️ - This was such a weird little book, so it was obviously right up my alley. 😂 It follows Charlie, who works for a company called Fresh Start, where people can literally erase themselves from other people's memories. As if that wasn't bizarre enough, Charlie also starts experiencing episodes where her consciousness randomly leaves her body. I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but this ended up being one of those "wtf did I just read?" books and we all know I love a good wtf moment!
I really enjoyed how much this made me think about AI, identity, social media and our obsession with constantly reinventing ourselves. There are some surprisingly emotional moments too, as Charlie struggles with her relationship to her own body and the people around her. It's quirky, funny and packed with strange ideas that somehow all work together. And just when I thought I'd figured it out... nope. That ending completely caught me off guard! It's the kind of book that sticks with you afterwards and leaves you wondering (and maybe feeling a little terrified) about where we're headed as a society.
Thank you so much to Penguin Australia for the gifted ARC!
I really enjoyed how much this made me think about AI, identity, social media and our obsession with constantly reinventing ourselves. There are some surprisingly emotional moments too, as Charlie struggles with her relationship to her own body and the people around her. It's quirky, funny and packed with strange ideas that somehow all work together. And just when I thought I'd figured it out... nope. That ending completely caught me off guard! It's the kind of book that sticks with you afterwards and leaves you wondering (and maybe feeling a little terrified) about where we're headed as a society.
Thank you so much to Penguin Australia for the gifted ARC!
July 21, 2026
4.5*
"nothing exists in isolation, yet almost everything must be done alone.
I'd rather remember, but I'm reassured by our capacity to forget. if we cannot carry everything, then at some point we carry too much, but what is abandoned is replaced, and may be rediscovered, since what we leave does not necessarily leave us. what is missing is only so because once, a long time ago, where now there is nothing, something was here."
such an interesting read about the horrifying rise of AI and fascism and what it means to have a digital footprint in the modern age. really enjoyed this and how it explored the things we will be remembered for and the intricacies of humanness in all its mistakes, imperfections and messiness, and what it means to have and be in your body. will be thinking about this for a while...
"nothing exists in isolation, yet almost everything must be done alone.
I'd rather remember, but I'm reassured by our capacity to forget. if we cannot carry everything, then at some point we carry too much, but what is abandoned is replaced, and may be rediscovered, since what we leave does not necessarily leave us. what is missing is only so because once, a long time ago, where now there is nothing, something was here."
such an interesting read about the horrifying rise of AI and fascism and what it means to have a digital footprint in the modern age. really enjoyed this and how it explored the things we will be remembered for and the intricacies of humanness in all its mistakes, imperfections and messiness, and what it means to have and be in your body. will be thinking about this for a while...
July 13, 2026
definitely good and interesting and worth a read!
i found though, that it was striving for a profundity it didn’t quite reach for me. i think the temporal bounding just kinda threw me out if it a bit too much. but still a good read (haha)
i found though, that it was striving for a profundity it didn’t quite reach for me. i think the temporal bounding just kinda threw me out if it a bit too much. but still a good read (haha)
September 4, 2026
I’ll be truthful in that, for the first third of Touch Grass, I wasn’t entirely convinced this book was for me. It's strange, disorienting and not particularly interested in explaining itself. Charlie’s consciousness keeps ejecting from her body, she occasionally takes refuge inside a cactus, genetically modified rabbits are running wild and an immortal sheep could somehow be the key to everything. I spent quite a while wondering where on earth it was all going.
But, I’m so very glad I persevered. By about two-thirds of the way through, the pieces started coming together and I found myself properly invested. What initially looked to be a quirky and slightly chaotic speculative novel gradually revealed itself as something far more intelligent and theoretically quite frightening.
Charlie works for Fresh Start, a company that removes people’s unwanted histories from the internet. That might mean deleting an embarrassing video or something much more involved. Her newest client is Lady Lakes, who is a young woman whose parents sold the rights to her life before she was old enough to consent. Lady has existed as public content since birth, and now she wants to disappear completely.
This was the part of the novel that really got under my skin. We already live in a world where children can have enormous digital footprints before they're capable of understanding what privacy means. Mary Colussi simply takes that reality several steps further and asks who owns a person once their identity has been watched, shared and monetised by millions.
The novel also raises some genuinely disturbing questions about memory. If technology can erase the record of an event, could it eventually alter what people remember? Who gets to decide which version of the past remains? And if we can delete every painful or embarrassing part of ourselves, would we feel liberated or no longer recognise who we had become?
Charlie is emotionally detached and initially difficult to connect with, which contributed to my slow start. But eventually, I understood that her distance is central to the story. Her consciousness leaving her body is a wonderfully strange literalisation of someone who's already spent years trying to escape herself.
There are a lot of ideas competing for space here: AI, surveillance, climate change, corporate control, influencer culture, and a lot more, so at times, it feels as though the novel is trying to carry slightly too much. The world-building is also delivered largely through implication, so readers who prefer everything clearly explained could find it frustrating.
But once it found its rhythm, it became clever, funny, unexpectedly moving and incredibly un-nerving. The later developments made me reconsider much of what I'd already read, and the implications stayed with me long after I finished.
This was by no means an immediate love affair, but it was certainly worth the patience it demanded. And by the end, the woman inhabiting a cactus and the immortal sheep were somehow the least alarming parts of the story.
#TouchGrass #MaryColussi #AustralianFiction #SpeculativeFiction #BookReview
But, I’m so very glad I persevered. By about two-thirds of the way through, the pieces started coming together and I found myself properly invested. What initially looked to be a quirky and slightly chaotic speculative novel gradually revealed itself as something far more intelligent and theoretically quite frightening.
Charlie works for Fresh Start, a company that removes people’s unwanted histories from the internet. That might mean deleting an embarrassing video or something much more involved. Her newest client is Lady Lakes, who is a young woman whose parents sold the rights to her life before she was old enough to consent. Lady has existed as public content since birth, and now she wants to disappear completely.
This was the part of the novel that really got under my skin. We already live in a world where children can have enormous digital footprints before they're capable of understanding what privacy means. Mary Colussi simply takes that reality several steps further and asks who owns a person once their identity has been watched, shared and monetised by millions.
The novel also raises some genuinely disturbing questions about memory. If technology can erase the record of an event, could it eventually alter what people remember? Who gets to decide which version of the past remains? And if we can delete every painful or embarrassing part of ourselves, would we feel liberated or no longer recognise who we had become?
Charlie is emotionally detached and initially difficult to connect with, which contributed to my slow start. But eventually, I understood that her distance is central to the story. Her consciousness leaving her body is a wonderfully strange literalisation of someone who's already spent years trying to escape herself.
There are a lot of ideas competing for space here: AI, surveillance, climate change, corporate control, influencer culture, and a lot more, so at times, it feels as though the novel is trying to carry slightly too much. The world-building is also delivered largely through implication, so readers who prefer everything clearly explained could find it frustrating.
But once it found its rhythm, it became clever, funny, unexpectedly moving and incredibly un-nerving. The later developments made me reconsider much of what I'd already read, and the implications stayed with me long after I finished.
This was by no means an immediate love affair, but it was certainly worth the patience it demanded. And by the end, the woman inhabiting a cactus and the immortal sheep were somehow the least alarming parts of the story.
#TouchGrass #MaryColussi #AustralianFiction #SpeculativeFiction #BookReview
July 2, 2026
What did I just read?!
I feel like this is the first time I’ve read a “what did I just read?” book and I definitely had fun with it. This is such a unique book full of interesting speculative concepts and characters that feel so painfully real and human. It’s quite bleak, but there’s hope to be found here, too, I think.
The concept of not just erasing a digital footprint but erasing those things (including people) from peoples memories is fascinating to me. I really loved this, and the way it was explored and the ways it can affect people was really interesting.
Then we have our MC spontaneously ejecting her consciousness from her body??? The commentary on this, the ways she thinks about her body and her physicality, her role in society and in the lives of the people around her, was at times heartbreaking and honestly so, so relatable.
Her relationships to her friends and her sister felt really well considered and really added a lot of heart and emotion to a book that’s often purposefully holding you at arms length due to the main character’s own issues. But these relationships really form a foundation for us to feel for Charlie and understand her better.
I also loved how unapologetically queer this book is. I haven’t seen it marketed as such anywhere but our MC’s asexuality plays a pretty big part in how she relates to the world and her own body, not always in a positive way, and none of that is glossed over or “fixed” - it just is. A lot of the other characters are queer in various ways, too.
Oh yeah, and don’t forget, there’s an immortal sheep in this book too.
I feel like this is the first time I’ve read a “what did I just read?” book and I definitely had fun with it. This is such a unique book full of interesting speculative concepts and characters that feel so painfully real and human. It’s quite bleak, but there’s hope to be found here, too, I think.
The concept of not just erasing a digital footprint but erasing those things (including people) from peoples memories is fascinating to me. I really loved this, and the way it was explored and the ways it can affect people was really interesting.
Then we have our MC spontaneously ejecting her consciousness from her body??? The commentary on this, the ways she thinks about her body and her physicality, her role in society and in the lives of the people around her, was at times heartbreaking and honestly so, so relatable.
Her relationships to her friends and her sister felt really well considered and really added a lot of heart and emotion to a book that’s often purposefully holding you at arms length due to the main character’s own issues. But these relationships really form a foundation for us to feel for Charlie and understand her better.
I also loved how unapologetically queer this book is. I haven’t seen it marketed as such anywhere but our MC’s asexuality plays a pretty big part in how she relates to the world and her own body, not always in a positive way, and none of that is glossed over or “fixed” - it just is. A lot of the other characters are queer in various ways, too.
Oh yeah, and don’t forget, there’s an immortal sheep in this book too.
June 15, 2026
What a great, quirky book. If you are looking for something a little bit different, this book will win you over. I found myself laughing out loud in places. If you wonder where the world of influencers and AI is going, this book provides some food for thought.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Quirky and thought-provoking.
June 25, 2026
If I had a penny for every similarity between this book and Sheep Detective, I'd have about three pennies. Which isn't a lot, but is still more than expected.
June 25, 2026
Mary has an amazing imagination! This book is different from anything I have ever read. I thought I knew where it was heading, but the reveal left me with goosebumps. Absolutely worth the read!
June 27, 2026
very unique concept & memorable protagonist!
a quote that stood out to me is “pretending you don't exist is just another way of pretending no one else does"
a quote that stood out to me is “pretending you don't exist is just another way of pretending no one else does"
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 3, 2026
What a trip.
July 11, 2026
I didn’t think it was for me at the start but I’m glad I persevered. Lots of themes weaved into this one. The future of humanity, AI, asexuality, family and work relationships.
July 12, 2026
Love how original this was. So many subtle meaningful messages. 4.5 stars.
Did Not Finish
June 21, 2026A quirky read that didn't quite match my current headspace. It's a "not you, it's me" situation, I'll revisit Touch Grass down the track. Thanks to Penguin Random House for the ARC.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews