What do you think?
Rate this book
Gag Reflex
Through diaristic ellipses, Nash crafts an origin story of obsessional masochism.
2005. Lucy shambles through the last weeks of her senior year of high school, jonesing for a thinner body, desperate to connect with another human. Who is reflected back at her when she is sleeping with someone, when she is puking into the toilet bowl? Who is reflected back when she’s alone? Only the internet knows, where she muses on the concept of her “self” through her Livejournal, with a cadre of online friends who are definitely NOT pro-anorexic.
Everyone's sick here, but at least they understand.
2005. Lucy shambles through the last weeks of her senior year of high school, jonesing for a thinner body, desperate to connect with another human. Who is reflected back at her when she is sleeping with someone, when she is puking into the toilet bowl? Who is reflected back when she’s alone? Only the internet knows, where she muses on the concept of her “self” through her Livejournal, with a cadre of online friends who are definitely NOT pro-anorexic.
Everyone's sick here, but at least they understand.
180 pages, Paperback
First published April 12, 2022
5 people are currently reading
1953 people want to read
About the author
Elle Nash
26 books506 followersElle Nash is the author of the novel Animals Eat Each Other (Dzanc Books), which was featured in the 2018 June Reading Room of O - The Oprah Magazine and hailed by Publishers Weekly as a ‘complex, impressive exploration of obsession and desire.’ Her debut collection of stories, Nudes, was published in 2021. Her next novel, Deliver Me, is out from Unnamed Press in 2023.
Her work appears in Guernica, The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Hub, BOMB Magazine, The Fanzine, Volume 1 Brooklyn, New York Tyrant and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine.
Her work appears in Guernica, The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Hub, BOMB Magazine, The Fanzine, Volume 1 Brooklyn, New York Tyrant and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 112 reviews
March 20, 2022
Elle Nash has taken her knives out again with her new novel, Gag Reflex, an earnest depiction of teenage suffering. The story follows Lucy (or XxLUCYS_LIGHT_DREAMxX as she’s known online) as she navigates the inner world of her eating disorder and takes the form of a series of live journal postings. Prose is intercut with jagged shards of poetry, along with chatbox threads of the anorexic online community, cheerfully lusting over food. Some entries, Lucy posts only a single line: ‘i want to be a cold, steel ball, large enough to be hollow / bells and compartments inside so i sing when I’m moved.’
Despite involving few sets and scenes, Lucy’s posts often turning to pure mania, the characters still feel vivid and the unspoken background of their high school lives all the more intense. Nash uses implied and declared vulnerability to create an emotional landscape that is both brutal and heart-breakingly honest. Stepping over the usual tropes of eating disorder fiction (Lucy’s arc is not necessarily one of getting well, there’s no inpatient clinic with a built-in girl gang) Nash instead chooses to dissect the spiralling inner monologue and contradictions of having a eating disorder, along with social rules of the community that allows it.
Loneliness pervades Gag Reflex, yet the novel comes across with distinct compassion. If you have a history with EDs and are at a place in your life where you can willingly remember that time, then Gag Reflex is the book to understand you. Otherwise just be taken by Elle Nash’s signature darkness and dangerously sharp prose.
Despite involving few sets and scenes, Lucy’s posts often turning to pure mania, the characters still feel vivid and the unspoken background of their high school lives all the more intense. Nash uses implied and declared vulnerability to create an emotional landscape that is both brutal and heart-breakingly honest. Stepping over the usual tropes of eating disorder fiction (Lucy’s arc is not necessarily one of getting well, there’s no inpatient clinic with a built-in girl gang) Nash instead chooses to dissect the spiralling inner monologue and contradictions of having a eating disorder, along with social rules of the community that allows it.
Loneliness pervades Gag Reflex, yet the novel comes across with distinct compassion. If you have a history with EDs and are at a place in your life where you can willingly remember that time, then Gag Reflex is the book to understand you. Otherwise just be taken by Elle Nash’s signature darkness and dangerously sharp prose.
March 21, 2023
A deeply aesthetic web 2 novella, starting w/ the emo index coding of a TOC. Entirely told in LiveJournal posts, a high school girl (Lucy) documents her fasting and calorie goals: 200-400 a day. It’s very much like a 2005 nostalgia project, as I recall surfing the Thinspo YouTube channels and spitting up my allotted four spoonfuls of strawberry sherbet. But Lucy documents her struggle like an online diary—and there are immediate replies from frustrated friends, asking what she wants to do about her f-ked perception/esteem. Lucy is naturally melodramatic at 18, pretentious in wanting her inner tragedy to come off poetic, though it still is a mark off natural, I.e. answering, “All I want is to listen w/ urgency as the sounds of people moving about the house takes over.” If this were a boy, it’d sound like a school shooter—interesting either way, though. By page 3, we can see the cover art influence w/ “wanting the tinted shadows in my skin to be neon pink and purple, make me glow.”
She fluctuates blaming her bulimia on herself and “industry standards,” though I’d like to know who she specifically aspires—a Calvin Klein billboard queen, a pre-Eugenia Cooney? There’s the unique take that she does not deserve to eat meat because her own bloated flesh isn’t respectable. She has a dead father and insensitive friend who jokes that she’s ugly—but quickly corrects she’s actually attractive. She makes AIM-like friends who fantasize about eating fatty dairy concoctions. In passing, we learn she’s an Otep fan, has a therapist (I’d like to hear from!) and knows people care about her. Seems she’s gone for months mostly fasting, and though she feels undeserving of care, knowingly craves it and relishes that keeps her off the scale.
An ex hits her up, seeming to hint he has re-emerging feelings since she’s been eyeing someone new, but Lucy writes it off as his horniness. This dissolves into ironic, kiddy name-calling, them telling each other their breath stinks. That’s not the only person rejecting her since the school is slowly finding out about her ED—even though she’s eating more than ever (still under 1K cals). “I float out on a swinging rope in outer space and time.” She wants rebirth through warm, red-sticky veins but is too bipolar, blue-fingertip weak.
I love that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and math metal are referenced. It’s relatable she has a counselor follow her from a distance, rails Addies and painkillers. Yet I’d like these feelings better explored, more external conflict that led to her bulimia getting to this point. Presumably it involves the b!tching mother. There are real-life notebook scans of wanna smex lists (girl is weirdly sexual for being so shy, “under average,” and weak), but they’re hard to read with ugly, faded cursive. Some involve pro and con lists of recovery, lyric-esque atheist quotes, college goals, self-questioning, intricate food tables w/ dietary properties (acids, fats, what days consumed). I like the sensual way she imagines a boy with purging fingers would stick them down her throat for her or how one of their girlfriends would punch her crooked teeth out if they knew. I’m sad Lucy didn’t go to prom (even though everything would’ve probably sucked) and that her mom does passive-aggressive or intentionally triggering things like give her “wasting-away celebrity” magazines because she knows she “likes the subject matter.”
This is a good book but I recommend I MUST HAVE YOU by JoAnna Novak for an even deeper, more long and vibrant ‘90s anorexia companion piece w/ cocaine and illicit affairs. The last 10 pages of Gag Reflex have a good reveal. I actually came in knowing the spoiler and completely forgot it. I may have to reread everything to put it all into perspective but this MC seems way too intelligent, too soon changed yet emotional for it to link the way I think it does. Like this story was made up as it went along (which works very well until this point). I’d love to hear from people new to Elle Nash, if the last 10 pgs made any sense to people unfamiliar w/ her first book, Animals Eat Each Other. I say this because, either way, the talk of Mike is dropped w/ too little explanation. Still, this is the author’s best, most consistent prose by a decent margin. Both books mentioned are worth readings, especially each only being about 100pgs and with an authentic teenage/alt girl poet vibe.
She fluctuates blaming her bulimia on herself and “industry standards,” though I’d like to know who she specifically aspires—a Calvin Klein billboard queen, a pre-Eugenia Cooney? There’s the unique take that she does not deserve to eat meat because her own bloated flesh isn’t respectable. She has a dead father and insensitive friend who jokes that she’s ugly—but quickly corrects she’s actually attractive. She makes AIM-like friends who fantasize about eating fatty dairy concoctions. In passing, we learn she’s an Otep fan, has a therapist (I’d like to hear from!) and knows people care about her. Seems she’s gone for months mostly fasting, and though she feels undeserving of care, knowingly craves it and relishes that keeps her off the scale.
An ex hits her up, seeming to hint he has re-emerging feelings since she’s been eyeing someone new, but Lucy writes it off as his horniness. This dissolves into ironic, kiddy name-calling, them telling each other their breath stinks. That’s not the only person rejecting her since the school is slowly finding out about her ED—even though she’s eating more than ever (still under 1K cals). “I float out on a swinging rope in outer space and time.” She wants rebirth through warm, red-sticky veins but is too bipolar, blue-fingertip weak.
I love that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and math metal are referenced. It’s relatable she has a counselor follow her from a distance, rails Addies and painkillers. Yet I’d like these feelings better explored, more external conflict that led to her bulimia getting to this point. Presumably it involves the b!tching mother. There are real-life notebook scans of wanna smex lists (girl is weirdly sexual for being so shy, “under average,” and weak), but they’re hard to read with ugly, faded cursive. Some involve pro and con lists of recovery, lyric-esque atheist quotes, college goals, self-questioning, intricate food tables w/ dietary properties (acids, fats, what days consumed). I like the sensual way she imagines a boy with purging fingers would stick them down her throat for her or how one of their girlfriends would punch her crooked teeth out if they knew. I’m sad Lucy didn’t go to prom (even though everything would’ve probably sucked) and that her mom does passive-aggressive or intentionally triggering things like give her “wasting-away celebrity” magazines because she knows she “likes the subject matter.”
This is a good book but I recommend I MUST HAVE YOU by JoAnna Novak for an even deeper, more long and vibrant ‘90s anorexia companion piece w/ cocaine and illicit affairs. The last 10 pages of Gag Reflex have a good reveal. I actually came in knowing the spoiler and completely forgot it. I may have to reread everything to put it all into perspective but this MC seems way too intelligent, too soon changed yet emotional for it to link the way I think it does. Like this story was made up as it went along (which works very well until this point). I’d love to hear from people new to Elle Nash, if the last 10 pgs made any sense to people unfamiliar w/ her first book, Animals Eat Each Other. I say this because, either way, the talk of Mike is dropped w/ too little explanation. Still, this is the author’s best, most consistent prose by a decent margin. Both books mentioned are worth readings, especially each only being about 100pgs and with an authentic teenage/alt girl poet vibe.
September 2, 2023
Opening with two quotes from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Elle Nash’s Gag Reflex invites a modern parable of a soul trapped inside a broken and fragmented body. Presented as early internet LiveJournal entries, the book documents Lucy’s disordered eating and desires: lists of daily calorie intakes scratched away like prison tallies, blog posts that veer from sickly sweet to nightmarish poems, her growing attachment to some guy named Mike. The rhythm of the book is interrupted with online discussions of food: a repressed avalanche of cream cheese, Italian dressing and buttermilk. The ending took me to the final line of Kafka’s The Trial: “‘Like a dog!’ he said, it was as if the shame of it should outlive him.” A devastating exploration of obsession—its small and fleeting victories, its dull aching pain, the betrayal of a body we never asked for. Also, Gag Reflex contains one of the greatest lines ever about oral fixation: “will straight men ever know the true zen of giving a blow job?”
May 21, 2022
CW: EDs
Gag Reflex is a compilation of live journal entries through adolescence and deals with serious topics such as EDs and discovering your sexuality.
I wasn’t expecting to love this as much as I did, it really reminded me a lot of my unsupervised times on the internet when I was a young teenager. The writing style rambled in such a way that made me feel so connected to the main character, Lucy. My heart constantly dropped and soared throughout the whole second half. It was such a lovely and sad little book that gave me SO MUCH nostalgia.
Pleaseeee pick this up if you want something different, short, realistic and nostalgic for sad girl summer ☀️😟
Gag Reflex is a compilation of live journal entries through adolescence and deals with serious topics such as EDs and discovering your sexuality.
I wasn’t expecting to love this as much as I did, it really reminded me a lot of my unsupervised times on the internet when I was a young teenager. The writing style rambled in such a way that made me feel so connected to the main character, Lucy. My heart constantly dropped and soared throughout the whole second half. It was such a lovely and sad little book that gave me SO MUCH nostalgia.
Pleaseeee pick this up if you want something different, short, realistic and nostalgic for sad girl summer ☀️😟
November 20, 2023
I love how this book is constructed.
It was poetic, and I felt like my young self again.
It reads like some blog posts, if you don't like that kind of books you might want to reconsider buying it, but for people who wants something different and unique, you will be pleased.
I seriously recommend this book for people who lived in the pro-ana era.
Very well done, nothing more transgressive than a book about anorexia written on a LiveJournal.
It was poetic, and I felt like my young self again.
It reads like some blog posts, if you don't like that kind of books you might want to reconsider buying it, but for people who wants something different and unique, you will be pleased.
I seriously recommend this book for people who lived in the pro-ana era.
Very well done, nothing more transgressive than a book about anorexia written on a LiveJournal.
April 8, 2022
This was beautiful in a jagged, imperfect way.
I've never suffered from an eating disorder, but I've been a depressed kid before. Elle Nash seems to be a couple years younger than me, but an entire generation of kids were raised by being told nothing they did or feel was important because they were kids and real life only happens to adults who were paying bills. But only having yourself to worry about without any responsibility or agency over your own life isn't the endless bacchanalia that it seems. Sometimes, having only your "self" is fucking terrifying. Through repetition and obsession, Elle Nash exposes what it feels to be at war with yourself. Wanting to be normal, but being hurt by people you think are normal. Wanting to be loved, but wanting to suffer at the same time.
Gag Reflex is a great novel about how it sucks to be young.
I've never suffered from an eating disorder, but I've been a depressed kid before. Elle Nash seems to be a couple years younger than me, but an entire generation of kids were raised by being told nothing they did or feel was important because they were kids and real life only happens to adults who were paying bills. But only having yourself to worry about without any responsibility or agency over your own life isn't the endless bacchanalia that it seems. Sometimes, having only your "self" is fucking terrifying. Through repetition and obsession, Elle Nash exposes what it feels to be at war with yourself. Wanting to be normal, but being hurt by people you think are normal. Wanting to be loved, but wanting to suffer at the same time.
Gag Reflex is a great novel about how it sucks to be young.
June 6, 2022
this was a revelation omg
September 4, 2022
I recommend this with all my heart and soul!! Ahh. A self-aware 18-year-old's ED/depression/teen angst struggle told through Livejournal entries and AIM chats. This spoke to parts of me that I didn't think I would ever see represented in literature, and I say that as someone who hasn't even lived with an eating disorder, which is like, the book's main thing. There is such a gut-wrenching truth to the way Elle Nash captures the adolescent search for identity, unafraid of all of its self-hatred, longing, and devastation. At eighteen, I felt really, deeply hopeless a lot of the time. But then there were moments -- watching an emo show with my best friend, listening to from under the cork tree in a fast food parking lot, sitting with my crush around a backyard bonfire, dreaming of what life will be like when i'm 25 and out of this town -- I somehow allowed myself to hope. Nash balances this confounding state of existence and honors it for its messy truth. I'm not surprised I forgot to add this to Goodreads (I don't even know what date I really read it) because it made time stop. I cried through it. I needed it. <3
March 17, 2023
Via blog entries, chat dialogues, and journal notes Gag Reflex documents a fictional anorexic teenage girl’s inner life in the year she graduates from high school. This novel lets the reader experience what it feels like to be stuck inside an insane mind and an unhealthy body. The appeal to read such a torturing experience as a non-anorexic person may lie both in the alienness of this specific obsession and in the familiarity of self-sabotaging thoughts behind closed doors.
Set in 2005, the writing is filled with timely internet lingo, dated expressions, American punk songs from the early 2000s, and poetical juvenilia. Reading Gag Reflex while listening to its soundtrack unearths an estranged decade which had been rightfully buried in history. This book evokes a clear feeling of anti-nostalgia; it crushes all rose-coloured glasses and sheds a sobering light on millennial puberty. — Is this autofiction? Would Nash’s first novel fill the gap in this novel’s timeline? May we truly trust the narrator on anything? Who knows.
Ugly. Truthful. Far too authentic to be simply beautiful.
Beautiful nonetheless.
Set in 2005, the writing is filled with timely internet lingo, dated expressions, American punk songs from the early 2000s, and poetical juvenilia. Reading Gag Reflex while listening to its soundtrack unearths an estranged decade which had been rightfully buried in history. This book evokes a clear feeling of anti-nostalgia; it crushes all rose-coloured glasses and sheds a sobering light on millennial puberty. — Is this autofiction? Would Nash’s first novel fill the gap in this novel’s timeline? May we truly trust the narrator on anything? Who knows.
Ugly. Truthful. Far too authentic to be simply beautiful.
Beautiful nonetheless.
May 9, 2024
3.5 stars
“i can recognize the human face of strangers and see them as neutral, i can see what i think is objective but when they see mine, why is it that my face is disfigured and has suddenly become very dirty and unacceptable?”
i’ve always been a fan of books written with unconventional formats so i really enjoyed the confessional layout of the book set out through online journal posts. the story centres around high school senior lucy as she navigates life and relationships with an eating disorder. what i really appreciated was how nash achieved the right balance of conveying the slightly cliché, try-hard writing of a chronically online, angsty teen with the bleak reality and conflicting thought processes that an eating disorder inflicts on you. there were a lot of sections that really resonated and reading nash’s acknowledgments at the end of the book really solidified the idea that actually, some of the closest bonds can arise from a community that originated from such toxicity and competitiveness.
this should go without saying but check the cws before reading :)
“i can recognize the human face of strangers and see them as neutral, i can see what i think is objective but when they see mine, why is it that my face is disfigured and has suddenly become very dirty and unacceptable?”
i’ve always been a fan of books written with unconventional formats so i really enjoyed the confessional layout of the book set out through online journal posts. the story centres around high school senior lucy as she navigates life and relationships with an eating disorder. what i really appreciated was how nash achieved the right balance of conveying the slightly cliché, try-hard writing of a chronically online, angsty teen with the bleak reality and conflicting thought processes that an eating disorder inflicts on you. there were a lot of sections that really resonated and reading nash’s acknowledgments at the end of the book really solidified the idea that actually, some of the closest bonds can arise from a community that originated from such toxicity and competitiveness.
this should go without saying but check the cws before reading :)
June 8, 2023
Fictional live journal entries from a young adult suffering from anorexia. Along with diary type entries there is poetry and a section of food journal pages.
This book was not for me. I felt like I was not the target audience and didn't enjoy or get anything out of the book. It was well-written though and I can imagine there are quotes that would be worthwhile for the right reader. My rating reflects my enjoyment rather than the book's worth.
This book was not for me. I felt like I was not the target audience and didn't enjoy or get anything out of the book. It was well-written though and I can imagine there are quotes that would be worthwhile for the right reader. My rating reflects my enjoyment rather than the book's worth.
December 10, 2024
“this book is for me,
for my younger self,
and for my pain”
Ahhh I really couldn’t stop myself from reading this, and I’m glad I did as it spoke to me on *so* many levels :,)
We follow the 18-year old Lucy, who has an eating disorder and documents her life on livejournal. Through her posts she shows how obsession wrecks both her mind and body. The “goal” is reaching a better (skinnier) self, which she plans on doing by maintaining a strict routine of either fasting or barely eating. But the perfection she seeks is set at unattainable levels, and more often than not, she’s met with a dull pain and the realization that she’s stuck in a body she’s doesn’t want to be in.
Everything we learn from the story comes through Lucy’s posts, as well as from the chats we see between her and her online- and real-life friends. Though I’m new to books written in unconventional formats, I really enjoyed this change! Both the blog entries and chat threads were fun and showed insight to the characters (though all from Lucy’s point of view). And because I’ve had my own selection of online friends, I felt a connection to the ones Lucy had - even though we know nothing about them (besides the shared struggles and favorite foods).
I’m too young to have been around for this exact era of social media, but there’s still similar communities today for people with eds, with secrecy still being the number one rule. Lucy’s journal is shown to be a ‘locked diary’, so it’s clear it’s not something she wants everyone to read (like her friend Jenny). Going through the struggles Lucy does limits who she can talk to, because most people would try to help her, and she’s not looking for a solution; she just wants to be understood, seen - have someone listen without judging. The type of community she’s in is like a safe space for people like her.
The author says the book is inspired by her own experience. There isn’t really a plot, or a mission to reach for the story. The point is giving insight to the mind of someone with a mental illness - which I genuinely enjoy soooo much. Among other things, Gag Reflex paints a picture loneliness, and what people will do for connection. Lucy treats herself badly and therefore lets others do the same. Neither Brian nor Mike prioritize her, yet she still allows them in her life - because at least with them she won’t be alone. It’s both painful and recognizable to read about.
The author shares that she thinks positively back on her time on livejournal. And though most people view it as dangerous and enabling to be apart of such communities, it’s often comforting for those in it, as the people struggling find comfort in each other.
My conclusion here is that I enjoyed it, but that people who get triggered by these types of topics should stray away from it. For my one sake, I’ll gladly read this again, and I think this actually might be my new comfort-uncomfortable book, so it gets 4.5 stars!
for my younger self,
and for my pain”
Ahhh I really couldn’t stop myself from reading this, and I’m glad I did as it spoke to me on *so* many levels :,)
We follow the 18-year old Lucy, who has an eating disorder and documents her life on livejournal. Through her posts she shows how obsession wrecks both her mind and body. The “goal” is reaching a better (skinnier) self, which she plans on doing by maintaining a strict routine of either fasting or barely eating. But the perfection she seeks is set at unattainable levels, and more often than not, she’s met with a dull pain and the realization that she’s stuck in a body she’s doesn’t want to be in.
Everything we learn from the story comes through Lucy’s posts, as well as from the chats we see between her and her online- and real-life friends. Though I’m new to books written in unconventional formats, I really enjoyed this change! Both the blog entries and chat threads were fun and showed insight to the characters (though all from Lucy’s point of view). And because I’ve had my own selection of online friends, I felt a connection to the ones Lucy had - even though we know nothing about them (besides the shared struggles and favorite foods).
I’m too young to have been around for this exact era of social media, but there’s still similar communities today for people with eds, with secrecy still being the number one rule. Lucy’s journal is shown to be a ‘locked diary’, so it’s clear it’s not something she wants everyone to read (like her friend Jenny). Going through the struggles Lucy does limits who she can talk to, because most people would try to help her, and she’s not looking for a solution; she just wants to be understood, seen - have someone listen without judging. The type of community she’s in is like a safe space for people like her.
The author says the book is inspired by her own experience. There isn’t really a plot, or a mission to reach for the story. The point is giving insight to the mind of someone with a mental illness - which I genuinely enjoy soooo much. Among other things, Gag Reflex paints a picture loneliness, and what people will do for connection. Lucy treats herself badly and therefore lets others do the same. Neither Brian nor Mike prioritize her, yet she still allows them in her life - because at least with them she won’t be alone. It’s both painful and recognizable to read about.
The author shares that she thinks positively back on her time on livejournal. And though most people view it as dangerous and enabling to be apart of such communities, it’s often comforting for those in it, as the people struggling find comfort in each other.
My conclusion here is that I enjoyed it, but that people who get triggered by these types of topics should stray away from it. For my one sake, I’ll gladly read this again, and I think this actually might be my new comfort-uncomfortable book, so it gets 4.5 stars!
June 1, 2023
Elle Nash has become an auto buy author. Gag Reflex follows the story of a senior in high school named Lucy, who struggles with mental health problems and an eating disorder. The book is written in a Y2K form, with the pages like journal entries, instant messaging, and emails. Nash writes about real-life struggles many women and young girls can relate to, but the writing is so genuine and raw that you feel like reading you’re a diary more than a fiction novel. I have purchased every single one of her books, and I am looking forward to reading more of her.
May 10, 2022
Elle Nash is definitely a writer to watch. Her writing is both intimate and frigid.
July 13, 2023
i spent way, way too much time on Livejournal as a teen so this hit me HARD!
January 30, 2024
It's just a book why are you crying" no, this is a powerful evocative masterpiece, this book understood me and was a cathartic experience, often providing nostalgia for the times in my youth I was left unsupervised on the internet, Elle transports us to a bygone era of the old dial up days that allowed more freedom of expression and anonymity, I really enjoyed the format told through live journal postings, interspersed with poetry and chat threads, the writing was raw and unfiltered and it felt like I was reading a real diary not fiction, I related with the character of Lucy a little too much, this book takes a brutal and heart breaking look into the inner monologue of a teenage girls angst and suffering, thankyou elle for creating work that made my inner teen feel seen, I never thought I would see parts of myself represented in literature in such an unflinching transgressive way, I absolutley love this authors writing style, it feels authentic and intimate, this book hurt, in a good way
June 7, 2022
• two for two and Elle Nash just keeps whipping out these literary gems. Gag Reflex follows our main narrator, Lucy Shambles via her online personas, XxLUCYS_LIGHT_DREAMxX (her livejournal username) and lucifer_dramamine (her AIM(?) username). I thought the structure of the novel being comprised solely of online interactions during the early 2000’s to be nostalgic and refreshing, however, the content within these livejournal entries and chats were quite the opposite. Lucy has an eating disorder and she’s aware of it, but the mental and physical repercussions leave her in a state of ambivalence when it comes to reaching out for help. Lucy is a character I really enjoyed reading about and towards the last few pages of the book my jaw dropped at how Elle Nash so effortlessly pulled the rug from under my feet.
.
•There were two things I thought were really fucking cool and enhanced my reading experiece. First, I loved that each of the livejournal entries in the book featured the "current music" feature of the actual website and I got to listen along with Lucy as she expressed herself via prose or poetry. Mostly Nu Metal artists fill her music catalog that brought me back to my high school years. Atreyu, ill niño,SOAD and Mudvayne to name a few. Just so so good and they fit so well with Lucy’s entries, the songs and the lyrics. Kudos to Nash for that level of detail. Second, that ending had my jaw on the floor. I was not expecting that whatsoever and was left speechless. Let’s just say if you’ve read Nash’s debut novel Animals Eat Each Other you are in for a treat.
June 27, 2022
Aside from researching trigger warnings, the less you know going into this novel the better.
Gag Reflex goes beyond any expectations I had for the title. Nash slashes herself open and lets her guts spill onto the page. The prose is tender, personal, and raw: it demands an emotive relationship between itself and the reader. Lucy's battle with her eating disorder is outlined hyper-realistically, existing with ebbs and flows, showcasing the nonlinear reality of recovery. A symbiotic relationship forms between intimate diary entries and recorded calorie counts, becoming more intertwined as the narrative progresses.
I had to put the book down a few times because it felt like I was sifting through someone's most personal musings without their consent. I felt like I was snooping, doing something wrong. It inserted me into the story, an uncomfortable interloper, viewing Lucy's life through an extremely personal lens. An author who can create that bond between the reader and the text is special.
The only time I didn't feel like an intruder was when passages were so relatable it seemed Nash burrowed herself into the darkest corners of my brain: taking notes and translating my most personal thoughts with an eloquence I could never muster.
2000's internet core is mastered here, down to the most minute of details. As a 90's bb this was very satisfying to interact with. Gag Reflex is a labor of love. I'm happy to exist in the same time period as Elle Nash, excited to read her works forever.
Gag Reflex goes beyond any expectations I had for the title. Nash slashes herself open and lets her guts spill onto the page. The prose is tender, personal, and raw: it demands an emotive relationship between itself and the reader. Lucy's battle with her eating disorder is outlined hyper-realistically, existing with ebbs and flows, showcasing the nonlinear reality of recovery. A symbiotic relationship forms between intimate diary entries and recorded calorie counts, becoming more intertwined as the narrative progresses.
I had to put the book down a few times because it felt like I was sifting through someone's most personal musings without their consent. I felt like I was snooping, doing something wrong. It inserted me into the story, an uncomfortable interloper, viewing Lucy's life through an extremely personal lens. An author who can create that bond between the reader and the text is special.
The only time I didn't feel like an intruder was when passages were so relatable it seemed Nash burrowed herself into the darkest corners of my brain: taking notes and translating my most personal thoughts with an eloquence I could never muster.
2000's internet core is mastered here, down to the most minute of details. As a 90's bb this was very satisfying to interact with. Gag Reflex is a labor of love. I'm happy to exist in the same time period as Elle Nash, excited to read her works forever.
May 27, 2023
thank you CLASH for the arc!
this was just beautifully and so realistically written that it made me contemplate my own feelings and life a couple of times. nash just has a way of perfectly articulating the deep and raw emotions of her characters, and how those feelings push them towards certain decisions and conclusions.
lucys feelings were so completely valid and real, and many times i wholeheartedly related to much of them on a higher level. this was about a girl dealing with an eating disorder, on a scale that extends beyond it as well. her feelings were messy, they were sad and heartbreaking but they were real! the feelings of an utter existential crisis and dread for merely being alive and present was presented in a way that truly spoke to me.
this was such a wonderful read and elle nash served again! as i knew she would! & i related sm to lucy which scares me a bit
slight spoiler??
also once i got near the end i realized that lucy was the nameless protagonist in ‘animals eat each other’ and it made this SO much better the moment it clicked for me. i loved that book sm and having her personal feelings laid out like that in comparison to animals eat each other was just so fucking perfect. i literally felt dumbfounded the moment i realized the connection of the two books interwoven into one
this was just beautifully and so realistically written that it made me contemplate my own feelings and life a couple of times. nash just has a way of perfectly articulating the deep and raw emotions of her characters, and how those feelings push them towards certain decisions and conclusions.
lucys feelings were so completely valid and real, and many times i wholeheartedly related to much of them on a higher level. this was about a girl dealing with an eating disorder, on a scale that extends beyond it as well. her feelings were messy, they were sad and heartbreaking but they were real! the feelings of an utter existential crisis and dread for merely being alive and present was presented in a way that truly spoke to me.
this was such a wonderful read and elle nash served again! as i knew she would! & i related sm to lucy which scares me a bit
slight spoiler??
also once i got near the end i realized that lucy was the nameless protagonist in ‘animals eat each other’ and it made this SO much better the moment it clicked for me. i loved that book sm and having her personal feelings laid out like that in comparison to animals eat each other was just so fucking perfect. i literally felt dumbfounded the moment i realized the connection of the two books interwoven into one
April 27, 2022
Insane, quick and easy read. Elle Nash has impressed once again with her stylistic writing choices formatted in a chatroom/live journal format. The writing follows a teen who is struggling with an eating disorder while trying to discover who they truly are as a person. Reading it just felt super real and relatable in certain aspects.
![Profile Image for Keith [on semi hiatus].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1541020315i%2F84884940._UX200_CR0%2C0%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
July 17, 2022
Oh my god; this, as a whole, is just one of the best things (not just experimental, but literary in general) I've ever read.
More of this type of thing.
Thank-goodness we have writers like Elle keeping the literature world chugging along.
More of this type of thing.
Thank-goodness we have writers like Elle keeping the literature world chugging along.
December 11, 2024
2005 - Lucy is 18, a senior in high school navigating teenage life, and an eating disorder.
The book is written in the form of Lucy's Livejournal blog. Here she posts updates on her mission to become thinner, her state of mind, on dealings with boys from school, on her meticulously calculated calorie intake (whose fluctuations tell a little story), and occasionally bits of edgy poetry.
The page's typography is set up as a blog post anno 2005. Complete with profile name (XxLUCYS_LIGHT_DREAMxX), blog post time/date, number of comments, a small header announcing a theme, and every post underscored with a soundtrack of early 2000's grunge and nu-metal. About halfway through the book, there is a series of photos of (almost unreadable) handwritten notes (schedules of food intake, pro/con list of "recovering", and a fuck-list), which almost felt like the author's actual high school notes.
Interspersed between the blog posts we get snippets of a group forum chat of Lucy and fellow online sufferers of EDs. Here they giddily share their favorite guilty eating pleasures - like a hot dog with mayo and peanut butter, or drinking pickle juice straight from a jar.
It feels almost voyeuristic to read, like eavesdropping on a group of insecure teenage girls' most intimate eating desires, never meant to be shared with anyone outside of this safe space, this secret internet cabal. The reader knows - as the girls themselves do - that all these forbidden delights will be either "purged" (for the bulimics) or followed by days of little to no eating.
In a sort of afterword, the author makes a point of how helpful this online community of people with eating disorders was for her understanding and analysis of herself, her disorder, and the reasons behind it.
Lucy muses a lot about these things in her blog posts, and for me, these were the most interesting parts of the book. For an outsider - with no experience of an eating disorder - it is not easy to understand the mechanisms within it, or behind it. The question of the outsider is a simple one - why?
The answer - like most often when people knowingly self-harm - is not simple, not abundantly clear. Lucy herself points out a paradox of self-knowing; feeling one moment that she understands herself and her motivations extremely well, but on other days grappling with a lack of self-understanding, and the futility of trying to explain her disorder to others. She knows she has an emotional disconnect of sorts, she knows she sees herself in a distorted way, in a way that others do not.
The reasons, however, are not that easy to pin down. There is likely a cultural element of beauty standards involved, but for me, this did not feel like the crux of the problem. It feels more internal, the eating disorder itself not the cause, but a symptom, an expression, of deeper existential issues.
Lucy voices concerns about being expendable, not unique, not fitting in or belonging in any place, and the prevalent existentialist theme of not having a purpose, which is probably key.
These underlying feelings are most likely the root cause of her overriding feeling of numbness; bouts of apathy that seem to quell or smother the more "real" visceral feelings underneath. She lacks a tangible sense of self, a clear identity, a sense of control in her life. The neurotic attention to detail about food intake and weight offers a tool to get some kind of control. Even if it is self-damaging, it gives a sense of purpose, a mission to maintain, a reason to keep going, an idea to cling to.
The book is set over just a few months, and in terms of narrative nothing major happens. This is more a still-life kind of book, a window into the mind of a person, a snapshot of the psyche at a particular point in time. There is no resolution or ending. What we get is an intimate, raw, and honest insight into the deepest expressable parts of a girl who wavers between wanting to be sick and wanting to recover. A girl who wants to experience true human connection, in any way possible.
I found it very interesting; as a piece of psychological insight into an issue I don't often read about, and as a stylistically different reading experience, I having little to no experience with the blog format or indeed "online-based" reading as a whole.
In addition, there were a few moments of striking prose/poetry, served alongside more typical "edgy" teenage poetry. I kind of liked this contrast, showing how some days Lucy was able to access profound language, while others she would say things like "i am a fat piece of shit and i want to die". Overall I found the language quite engaging and with a good bit of verve, in part due to these contrasting registers.
My only real critique is the ending, which I understand is a sort of bridge/prequel to the author's debut novel (which features a nameless main character, who is then apparently Lucy from this book). This transition, from the very particular time and space in which we engage with Lucy, into her future endeavors explored in another book, did not work that well for me. It sort of obscured how this book ended. I almost got the sense that Lucy, the character so intimately connected to for the duration of the book, just sort of disappeared quite suddenly. But then, I haven't read the first book, so maybe if one has read Animals Eat Each Other the ending here was more satisfactory.
Overall I enjoyed this and can recommend it, as a sharp and fast-paced read, that simultaneously is incredibly intimate and very insightful.
The book is written in the form of Lucy's Livejournal blog. Here she posts updates on her mission to become thinner, her state of mind, on dealings with boys from school, on her meticulously calculated calorie intake (whose fluctuations tell a little story), and occasionally bits of edgy poetry.
The page's typography is set up as a blog post anno 2005. Complete with profile name (XxLUCYS_LIGHT_DREAMxX), blog post time/date, number of comments, a small header announcing a theme, and every post underscored with a soundtrack of early 2000's grunge and nu-metal. About halfway through the book, there is a series of photos of (almost unreadable) handwritten notes (schedules of food intake, pro/con list of "recovering", and a fuck-list), which almost felt like the author's actual high school notes.
Interspersed between the blog posts we get snippets of a group forum chat of Lucy and fellow online sufferers of EDs. Here they giddily share their favorite guilty eating pleasures - like a hot dog with mayo and peanut butter, or drinking pickle juice straight from a jar.
It feels almost voyeuristic to read, like eavesdropping on a group of insecure teenage girls' most intimate eating desires, never meant to be shared with anyone outside of this safe space, this secret internet cabal. The reader knows - as the girls themselves do - that all these forbidden delights will be either "purged" (for the bulimics) or followed by days of little to no eating.
In a sort of afterword, the author makes a point of how helpful this online community of people with eating disorders was for her understanding and analysis of herself, her disorder, and the reasons behind it.
Lucy muses a lot about these things in her blog posts, and for me, these were the most interesting parts of the book. For an outsider - with no experience of an eating disorder - it is not easy to understand the mechanisms within it, or behind it. The question of the outsider is a simple one - why?
The answer - like most often when people knowingly self-harm - is not simple, not abundantly clear. Lucy herself points out a paradox of self-knowing; feeling one moment that she understands herself and her motivations extremely well, but on other days grappling with a lack of self-understanding, and the futility of trying to explain her disorder to others. She knows she has an emotional disconnect of sorts, she knows she sees herself in a distorted way, in a way that others do not.
The reasons, however, are not that easy to pin down. There is likely a cultural element of beauty standards involved, but for me, this did not feel like the crux of the problem. It feels more internal, the eating disorder itself not the cause, but a symptom, an expression, of deeper existential issues.
Lucy voices concerns about being expendable, not unique, not fitting in or belonging in any place, and the prevalent existentialist theme of not having a purpose, which is probably key.
These underlying feelings are most likely the root cause of her overriding feeling of numbness; bouts of apathy that seem to quell or smother the more "real" visceral feelings underneath. She lacks a tangible sense of self, a clear identity, a sense of control in her life. The neurotic attention to detail about food intake and weight offers a tool to get some kind of control. Even if it is self-damaging, it gives a sense of purpose, a mission to maintain, a reason to keep going, an idea to cling to.
The book is set over just a few months, and in terms of narrative nothing major happens. This is more a still-life kind of book, a window into the mind of a person, a snapshot of the psyche at a particular point in time. There is no resolution or ending. What we get is an intimate, raw, and honest insight into the deepest expressable parts of a girl who wavers between wanting to be sick and wanting to recover. A girl who wants to experience true human connection, in any way possible.
I found it very interesting; as a piece of psychological insight into an issue I don't often read about, and as a stylistically different reading experience, I having little to no experience with the blog format or indeed "online-based" reading as a whole.
In addition, there were a few moments of striking prose/poetry, served alongside more typical "edgy" teenage poetry. I kind of liked this contrast, showing how some days Lucy was able to access profound language, while others she would say things like "i am a fat piece of shit and i want to die". Overall I found the language quite engaging and with a good bit of verve, in part due to these contrasting registers.
My only real critique is the ending, which I understand is a sort of bridge/prequel to the author's debut novel (which features a nameless main character, who is then apparently Lucy from this book). This transition, from the very particular time and space in which we engage with Lucy, into her future endeavors explored in another book, did not work that well for me. It sort of obscured how this book ended. I almost got the sense that Lucy, the character so intimately connected to for the duration of the book, just sort of disappeared quite suddenly. But then, I haven't read the first book, so maybe if one has read Animals Eat Each Other the ending here was more satisfactory.
Overall I enjoyed this and can recommend it, as a sharp and fast-paced read, that simultaneously is incredibly intimate and very insightful.
July 5, 2022
"How can I know myself so well and still have no idea who the hell I am?"
Despite leaving with overall mixed feelings, this book blew me away as I read it in one sitting. It's an incredibly bleak look into a teenage girl's mind via her private LiveJournal and AIM convos (I always LOVE when books are structured like this), and while I don't necessarily relate directly to our MC's struggles with her ED, the story did force me to sit and reckon with my own past self's unhealthy coping mechanisms and issues with control and addiction in differing forms. It made me think a lot, it made me uncomfortable, and even if not everything worked for me, I'm incredibly grateful for that.
What I really loved was the exploration of feeling like you're “not [insert community, illness, etc. here] enough,” and as a result, feeling like you're not "allowed" to classify yourself as that. We see this as our MC doesn't feel "sick enough" to consider herself as "truly" anorexic:
"I don't even feel like I'm allowed to call myself anorexic, even if by diagnosable standards I am, I feel like the word itself brings too much to mind that I don't fit. So it can't be that."
This is a recurring theme(?) that I always find incredibly powerful and fascinating in characters, because it's just so human and so relatable. How do we ever really know what we are or are not? Who, if anyone, gets to decide? And in the end, does it really even matter?
The only thing about this book that didn't really click for me was that I just didn't know if it was believable that a high school senior is operating at such a high level of self-awareness despite her self-destructive tendencies. At least in my personal experience, as a high schooler I think you're way too in the thick of your suffering (self-inflicted or otherwise) to really know what the root causes are while it's all happening to you. Insights into what it all means really only come retroactively.
The last entry does try to do this (and does it very well in my opinion), but there were also moments throughout the book where I just wasn't sure if a teenage girl could really have the wherewithal to make these sorts of connections about mommy issues, searching for an identity, etc. in the present moment. But idk, the case could also be made that this MC is just way smarter than I ever was or will be, and that's fair, too.
Overall I definitely recommend this book as long as you're in the right headspace and are in a position where you can set aside at minimum 3-5 business days after finishing to process it all in therapy.
Despite leaving with overall mixed feelings, this book blew me away as I read it in one sitting. It's an incredibly bleak look into a teenage girl's mind via her private LiveJournal and AIM convos (I always LOVE when books are structured like this), and while I don't necessarily relate directly to our MC's struggles with her ED, the story did force me to sit and reckon with my own past self's unhealthy coping mechanisms and issues with control and addiction in differing forms. It made me think a lot, it made me uncomfortable, and even if not everything worked for me, I'm incredibly grateful for that.
What I really loved was the exploration of feeling like you're “not [insert community, illness, etc. here] enough,” and as a result, feeling like you're not "allowed" to classify yourself as that. We see this as our MC doesn't feel "sick enough" to consider herself as "truly" anorexic:
"I don't even feel like I'm allowed to call myself anorexic, even if by diagnosable standards I am, I feel like the word itself brings too much to mind that I don't fit. So it can't be that."
This is a recurring theme(?) that I always find incredibly powerful and fascinating in characters, because it's just so human and so relatable. How do we ever really know what we are or are not? Who, if anyone, gets to decide? And in the end, does it really even matter?
The only thing about this book that didn't really click for me was that I just didn't know if it was believable that a high school senior is operating at such a high level of self-awareness despite her self-destructive tendencies. At least in my personal experience, as a high schooler I think you're way too in the thick of your suffering (self-inflicted or otherwise) to really know what the root causes are while it's all happening to you. Insights into what it all means really only come retroactively.
The last entry does try to do this (and does it very well in my opinion), but there were also moments throughout the book where I just wasn't sure if a teenage girl could really have the wherewithal to make these sorts of connections about mommy issues, searching for an identity, etc. in the present moment. But idk, the case could also be made that this MC is just way smarter than I ever was or will be, and that's fair, too.
Overall I definitely recommend this book as long as you're in the right headspace and are in a position where you can set aside at minimum 3-5 business days after finishing to process it all in therapy.
July 17, 2022
There are so many entries in Gag Reflex where I could see my teenage self. As someone who grew up in the LiveJournal era, this one really hit me like a ton of bricks. I never suffered from an eating disorder, but that overwhelming feeling to be beautiful and loved and depressed and hating myself at the same time ran deep through my bones for the majority of my life. Elle Nash blew me away with this one, I can’t even express to you how many times I felt myself tearing up or getting angry at the words I was inhaling into my brain. I’m glad this was my first read from Elle, now I can get to the other two - and hope they shake me to my core and bring out so many different emotions that I bury deep down just like this one did.
August 26, 2023
Wow…this one. First of all, HUGE eating disorder trigger warning—this one was hard to read, even without having an ED history. This is a no-holds-barred account of a teen’s self-loathing and self-destructive behaviors, eventually edging towards self-acceptance, told in the format (down to the “current music” selection) of a LiveJournal from 2005. It’s a pretty incredible nostalgia trip, not in the form of boy bands and chokers but more like the sinister, early-internet confessional, secrets from your parents, messy and disrespectful teen sexual exploration, vacant sense of identity, yearning for and terrified of intimacy kind of millennial early-2000s nostalgia trip.
January 6, 2023
this book made me feel 15 again which was powerful and awful. it brought me a lot of comfort to be able to just put it down and step away from it and into my life now as a slightly better adjusted adult
March 23, 2024
I absolutely think a lot of people will connect with Gag Reflex, it sure as hell spoke to me. Took me right back to my own days posting on Tumblr of my own musings during the darkest time of my eating disorder. Like...I felt those feelings. I even read copious amounts of books on Buddhism and the concept of suffering being inevitable. Super short read that evoked a sense of nostalgia.
Read
September 17, 2024probably read this too fast to properly digest it and definitely am slightly too young to appreciate the livejournal old internet beats but i absolutely spent enough time on *that* side of tumblr as a teenager that 'gag reflex' hit me as a bout of heavy, icky and somehow still warm nostalgia
April 12, 2025
I’m happy I’ve finally read this book, these heavy 2000s web journal entries. Experimental, poetic, gut-wrenching. So vulnerable that it feels almost impeding on someone’s private diary- but what’s written is shared, meant to be seen amongst friends that struggle too. We get it.
July 21, 2022
a necessary must-read
Displaying 1 - 30 of 112 reviews