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The Gravity Between Us: The Shape of Waiting
205 pages, Paperback
Published June 23, 2026
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July 11, 2026
The Shape of Waiting isn't simply about leaving one life for another. It's about discovering that a sense of belonging is not something you arrive at. It is something you slowly allow yourself to participate in.
At its heart lay a married couple learning how to become a family. The story follows two women and a teenage daughter over a course of their first year together; as they slowly transform a shared house into something far more meaningful - a place they can finally call "theirs." The primary plot is of Winnie, trying to discover where she fits. She is conflicted. A fourteen-year-old stepdaughter becomes central to that adjustment. A very distant father has chosen a life of travel over putting down roots. A mother is learning how to share/include decisions about her daughter she's made alone for six years. And a best friend quietly becomes the steady guide Winnie needs.
The style of writing IS the experience. The reader could be challenged. It is different. Beyond the norm of traditional writing technique. Do you want to be S.T.R.E.T.C.H.E.D? It’s called Parataxis. The style feels necessary to be in Winnie’s mind. Grey Hollis nails this. It is the architecture needed to understand Winnie.
She calculates.
She measures.
She evaluates.
Everything in its place. Until she is no longer in her space. Winnie and Kathryn. A new marriage. And a lot to figure out. There is a staccato to this journey. It is not flowing prose. Is life? It is carefully engineered and embodies the fragments and pieces of what becoming into a new life looks like. Their story is not built on sweeping declarations of love or grand romantic gestures. It doesn't latch on to spice or physical/sexual intimacy. Instead, it leans into something quieter and, to me, far more authentic to our own lived experiences. Your expectations should shift. You may want more, I did, but the beauty of this read is in how close it touches the world as it currently exists. It almost feels nonfiction.
There is an internal struggle for Winnie and although she chooses Kathryn and moves her life, she left a version she liked before. A place she called home to a place unknown. She keeps looking behind and thus is not fully present. The novel's most profound idea -growth is not betrayal. As a reader you may reflect on how this is relatable - there is not just one version of you. "What you want can change without you betraying the version of yourself that wanted the first thing" (pg. 127).
The relationship unfolds the way life often does - almost as if one is riding a bike before it is fully built. Winnie begins by treating love and family as a problem to solve. She believes belonging is earned through getting everything "right." How wrong she is. My patience for Winnie in how she frames her adjusted life is disappointing. There is a countdown that is clear. No spoilers, but you won’t like it either. If only her wife knew.
She felt out of place. But what if everything you believed was in fact not at all the way you had figured? Here is where Hollis leans into character development and you, as the reader, unfold within the reveal. Patiently, with small gestures from those around her, Winnie starts to see something different. She wasn't meant to find her place within a family dynamic that had already existed, she was helping create a family that had never existed without her. The reader knows and begs for Winnie to realize this.
That changes everything.
Winnie spent months standing in the doorway of a life that had already opened its arms to her. She was so afraid of taking up too much space that she denied herself the very thing everyone else had already begun to offer. By the end, home is no longer a location or the apartment she left behind. Nor is it simply Kathryn. Home becomes the evidence she saw but didn’t realize. Evidence that someone leaves an earbud out because they want in. Evidence that a child seeks your advice before sending a vulnerable text. Evidence that another person's routines have quietly become intertwined with your own. Evidence that your absence would now leave a space. Evidence that your countdown was foolish.
We often delay our own belonging because we keep waiting for permission that has already been given.
The novel gently argues that family is not defined by biology, history, or even longevity. It is built through thousands of ordinary choices to keep showing up for one another and home is where your presence changes the shape and light of the room.
Family. Home. Us.
At its heart lay a married couple learning how to become a family. The story follows two women and a teenage daughter over a course of their first year together; as they slowly transform a shared house into something far more meaningful - a place they can finally call "theirs." The primary plot is of Winnie, trying to discover where she fits. She is conflicted. A fourteen-year-old stepdaughter becomes central to that adjustment. A very distant father has chosen a life of travel over putting down roots. A mother is learning how to share/include decisions about her daughter she's made alone for six years. And a best friend quietly becomes the steady guide Winnie needs.
The style of writing IS the experience. The reader could be challenged. It is different. Beyond the norm of traditional writing technique. Do you want to be S.T.R.E.T.C.H.E.D? It’s called Parataxis. The style feels necessary to be in Winnie’s mind. Grey Hollis nails this. It is the architecture needed to understand Winnie.
She calculates.
She measures.
She evaluates.
Everything in its place. Until she is no longer in her space. Winnie and Kathryn. A new marriage. And a lot to figure out. There is a staccato to this journey. It is not flowing prose. Is life? It is carefully engineered and embodies the fragments and pieces of what becoming into a new life looks like. Their story is not built on sweeping declarations of love or grand romantic gestures. It doesn't latch on to spice or physical/sexual intimacy. Instead, it leans into something quieter and, to me, far more authentic to our own lived experiences. Your expectations should shift. You may want more, I did, but the beauty of this read is in how close it touches the world as it currently exists. It almost feels nonfiction.
There is an internal struggle for Winnie and although she chooses Kathryn and moves her life, she left a version she liked before. A place she called home to a place unknown. She keeps looking behind and thus is not fully present. The novel's most profound idea -growth is not betrayal. As a reader you may reflect on how this is relatable - there is not just one version of you. "What you want can change without you betraying the version of yourself that wanted the first thing" (pg. 127).
The relationship unfolds the way life often does - almost as if one is riding a bike before it is fully built. Winnie begins by treating love and family as a problem to solve. She believes belonging is earned through getting everything "right." How wrong she is. My patience for Winnie in how she frames her adjusted life is disappointing. There is a countdown that is clear. No spoilers, but you won’t like it either. If only her wife knew.
She felt out of place. But what if everything you believed was in fact not at all the way you had figured? Here is where Hollis leans into character development and you, as the reader, unfold within the reveal. Patiently, with small gestures from those around her, Winnie starts to see something different. She wasn't meant to find her place within a family dynamic that had already existed, she was helping create a family that had never existed without her. The reader knows and begs for Winnie to realize this.
That changes everything.
Winnie spent months standing in the doorway of a life that had already opened its arms to her. She was so afraid of taking up too much space that she denied herself the very thing everyone else had already begun to offer. By the end, home is no longer a location or the apartment she left behind. Nor is it simply Kathryn. Home becomes the evidence she saw but didn’t realize. Evidence that someone leaves an earbud out because they want in. Evidence that a child seeks your advice before sending a vulnerable text. Evidence that another person's routines have quietly become intertwined with your own. Evidence that your absence would now leave a space. Evidence that your countdown was foolish.
We often delay our own belonging because we keep waiting for permission that has already been given.
The novel gently argues that family is not defined by biology, history, or even longevity. It is built through thousands of ordinary choices to keep showing up for one another and home is where your presence changes the shape and light of the room.
Family. Home. Us.
Displaying 1 of 1 review