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The Weight of Loss
How do you find peace after a devastating loss?
A search for solace takes a dark turn in this electrifying debut.
Marianne is grieving. Still reeling from the loss of her sister, she wakes up one day to discover a thick, black hair protruding from her spine. Her doctor assures her that the inexplicable growth is a physical reaction to grief. Forced to admit that she isn’t coping, Marianne accepts the offer of a quiet recovery at Nede, a remote health retreat in the Welsh countryside.
But all is not as it seems at Nede, and Marianne feels herself starting to lose control: of her body, her mind, and her memories. Why are her fellow patients so unwilling to talk? Can she trust the staff who claim to be so keen to help her?
The escape she has craved for so long might finally be possible. But it will come at a terrible price.
The Weight of Loss is a spine-tingling debut about grief and obsession, with a shocking twist of an ending that will leave your heart pounding.
A search for solace takes a dark turn in this electrifying debut.
Marianne is grieving. Still reeling from the loss of her sister, she wakes up one day to discover a thick, black hair protruding from her spine. Her doctor assures her that the inexplicable growth is a physical reaction to grief. Forced to admit that she isn’t coping, Marianne accepts the offer of a quiet recovery at Nede, a remote health retreat in the Welsh countryside.
But all is not as it seems at Nede, and Marianne feels herself starting to lose control: of her body, her mind, and her memories. Why are her fellow patients so unwilling to talk? Can she trust the staff who claim to be so keen to help her?
The escape she has craved for so long might finally be possible. But it will come at a terrible price.
The Weight of Loss is a spine-tingling debut about grief and obsession, with a shocking twist of an ending that will leave your heart pounding.
316 pages, Hardcover
First published June 2, 2022
57 people are currently reading
7150 people want to read
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December 5, 2025
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June 2, 2022
Whilst grieving the death of her sister, Marianne discovers a strange change taking place in her body: a line of long black hairs has started sprouting along her spine. After a visit to her doctor, Marianne is referred to a remote rehabilitation centre in the forest that seemingly specialises in her unusual affliction. Whilst undergoing the increasingly strange treatments at the facility, Marianne and her fellow patients soon start digging for answers to get to the root of their shared condition.
As a big fan of the concept of combining a story of grief with elements of magical realism and body-horror, I was very excited to give this book a shot. Unfortunately, what off as an interesting idea, quickly divulged into a convoluted mess that lacked the emotional depth I was hoping for.
The opening chapter is very strong and does a great job of setting the atmosphere and framework for what could follow. If only the story would build upon that framework in a structured way. Instead we get introduced to a bunch of new interesting ideas, none of which get developed quite enough, and all of which fell flat for me in the process. We never actually get back around to that intriguing beginning, and I’m still not completely sure as to where in the story it actually fit.
The Weight of Loss felt like a story with an identity crisis; it tries its hardest at being literary-horror but doesn’t quite stick the landing on many of the common tropes of the genre. It joins the trend of “breaking the stigma surrounding (female) bodies on page”, but instead of functional nudity we get being explicit and crude for the sake of.
It also throws in some literary motifs that are so clunky, I wasn’t even sure they were intentional
After all that, the story strangely veers into a sci-fi/dystopian twist ending that came out of thin air, and confused me even more as to what the intended meaning of the story was.
Overall, a novel that gets an extra star of credit for the concept, but truthfully didn’t escape being a one-star-reading experience for me.
Thanks to Oneworld Publications for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Weight of Loss is available today in Europe, and will release on June 6th in American territory under the (more fitting) title of Garden of Earthly Bodies.
As a big fan of the concept of combining a story of grief with elements of magical realism and body-horror, I was very excited to give this book a shot. Unfortunately, what off as an interesting idea, quickly divulged into a convoluted mess that lacked the emotional depth I was hoping for.
The opening chapter is very strong and does a great job of setting the atmosphere and framework for what could follow. If only the story would build upon that framework in a structured way. Instead we get introduced to a bunch of new interesting ideas, none of which get developed quite enough, and all of which fell flat for me in the process. We never actually get back around to that intriguing beginning, and I’m still not completely sure as to where in the story it actually fit.
The Weight of Loss felt like a story with an identity crisis; it tries its hardest at being literary-horror but doesn’t quite stick the landing on many of the common tropes of the genre. It joins the trend of “breaking the stigma surrounding (female) bodies on page”, but instead of functional nudity we get being explicit and crude for the sake of.
It also throws in some literary motifs that are so clunky, I wasn’t even sure they were intentional
After all that, the story strangely veers into a sci-fi/dystopian twist ending that came out of thin air, and confused me even more as to what the intended meaning of the story was.
Overall, a novel that gets an extra star of credit for the concept, but truthfully didn’t escape being a one-star-reading experience for me.
Thanks to Oneworld Publications for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Weight of Loss is available today in Europe, and will release on June 6th in American territory under the (more fitting) title of Garden of Earthly Bodies.
May 7, 2023
“This was the saddest part of life – not being able to tell someone in time how valuable they were.”
〰️🌿🥀
An exceptionally chilling, unnerving speculative fiction dealing with trauma, identity, and the workings of memory, Garden of Earthly Bodies is a provocative debut that roots deeply in our minds long after the last page.
Sally Oliver illustrates the intricacies of life —not as it appears superficially, in acts and interactions, but life as an ongoing historical narrative.
The novel begins with an intense focus on Marianne, a melancholy, tormented woman whose past experiences are inextricably linked to her present suffering.
All aspects of her life— her fraught relationship, failing career, paradoxical hatred and love of living— are all colored by her extreme trauma.
Each day is a struggle for Marianna, and her tendency for self-sabotage and deep psychological distress are both heartbreaking and disturbing to witness.
Oliver's handling of Marianne's story, with its extensive use of allegory and metaphor, is a strong reminder that past events are never completely passed—that they linger in memory and consequence, and that the aftershocks of a tragedy may never cease.
Oliver's labyrinthine prose is enthralling. She writes with poetic detail, masterfully mixing each chapter with a balance of erotic and fatalistic tension.
Like a garden ravished by weeds, Oliver shows us that grief left untended can rot us from the inside out.
Garden of Earthly Bodies is a literary work of art that at times excels and occasionally experiences brief weaknesses. Therefore, evaluating the novel's cumulative effect is challenging. It is, at its best, a profound and nuanced exploration of trauma and mortality. Garden of Earthly Bodies explores grief and anguish in an intimate way that has left me ruminating about how brief and wild life is.
September 26, 2022
The story just didn't "hit" in a way I expected. Maybe I had to high expectations. But just couldn't get intvested in the plot nor characters enough to effect me in anyway
August 11, 2022
I think my expectations were too high going into this one. The title and cover immediately drew me in, and it sounded like just my kind of weird. Only... it didn't live up to the anticipated strangeness as much as I had hoped.
The book focuses on Marianne, a woman who is deeply grieving the loss of her sister, and who has noticed an odd growth of thick black hairs down her spine. Her doctor informs her that bodies do bizarre things when under a great deal of stress and recommends that she consider signing up to spend a month at an isolated retreat called Nede. Marianne, in an effort to escape her depression and lackluster relationship with her boyfriend, decides to take the plunge. A month of being pampered and engaging in stress-reducing activies is too hard to pass up. But once inside the grounds, Marianne realizes she might have made a grave (snicker snicker) mistake.
Ok, so the weird hairs appear right at the beginning of the book and but almost immediately take a backseat for a while as Oliver spends an exorbiant amount of time building Marianne's backstory with both her sister and her fiance. About midway through we finally get to Nede, the getaway-slash-research facility, but try not to get too excited because we spend more time in Marianne's backstory again than we do in her present situation. And then BOOM, we find ourselves rushing headlong into the end of the book, where the really weird shit finally hits but we're unprepared and not entirely sure what is happening or why... and then it's over. Done. No more pages. And we're left slightly unsatisfied.
Regardless of my issues with the pacing and holes in the plot, Garden of Earthly Bodies is quite a powerful exploration of grief and trauma and how it wears down the body, not just mentally but physically. If you prefer books that focus on the internal instead of external, this might be just the thing for you.
The book focuses on Marianne, a woman who is deeply grieving the loss of her sister, and who has noticed an odd growth of thick black hairs down her spine. Her doctor informs her that bodies do bizarre things when under a great deal of stress and recommends that she consider signing up to spend a month at an isolated retreat called Nede. Marianne, in an effort to escape her depression and lackluster relationship with her boyfriend, decides to take the plunge. A month of being pampered and engaging in stress-reducing activies is too hard to pass up. But once inside the grounds, Marianne realizes she might have made a grave (snicker snicker) mistake.
Ok, so the weird hairs appear right at the beginning of the book and but almost immediately take a backseat for a while as Oliver spends an exorbiant amount of time building Marianne's backstory with both her sister and her fiance. About midway through we finally get to Nede, the getaway-slash-research facility, but try not to get too excited because we spend more time in Marianne's backstory again than we do in her present situation. And then BOOM, we find ourselves rushing headlong into the end of the book, where the really weird shit finally hits but we're unprepared and not entirely sure what is happening or why... and then it's over. Done. No more pages. And we're left slightly unsatisfied.
Regardless of my issues with the pacing and holes in the plot, Garden of Earthly Bodies is quite a powerful exploration of grief and trauma and how it wears down the body, not just mentally but physically. If you prefer books that focus on the internal instead of external, this might be just the thing for you.
April 11, 2022
3.5 stars
Some great scenes, and some not so great ones.
I really was torn on this book., at times it had me hooked, and yet it seemed to drag to get to the retreat.
For me the best parts involved Marianne and her relationship with her sister.
I'm definitely interested in reading more by this author.
Some great scenes, and some not so great ones.
I really was torn on this book., at times it had me hooked, and yet it seemed to drag to get to the retreat.
For me the best parts involved Marianne and her relationship with her sister.
I'm definitely interested in reading more by this author.
August 20, 2025
This was SO good! I was instantly drawn in and I really loved the dual time lines. That’s always something that I enjoy when reading. This was a bit of a slow burn but it’s the perfect type of slow burn, sinking its claws in deep before you know it. Certain parts literally made me cringe and feel chills down my spine, I even had a dream about the hairs on the back and it was horrifying. My only complaint was the end, it seemed abrupt and I wanted something more final.
July 1, 2022
6/28/2022 Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.
7/1/2022 I must say, the American title is much better than the painfully generic The Weight Of Loss this novel was saddled with across the pond. Garden Of Earthly Bodies at least hints at the speculative fiction plot contained within these pages.
That plot is the story of Marianne, who is grieving the death of her beloved younger sister Marie. She lives with her boyfriend Richard in London, but feels a growing alienation from him as her depression and perverse refusal to listen to her doctors drives a wedge between them. When she wakes up one day to find a strange black hair growing out of her back, she doesn't really want to see anyone about it, since she mostly ignores medical advice anyway. But when efforts to remove both the first and subsequent hairs that begin springing up along her spine lead to a temporary madness, even she realizes that this is something way beyond her capacity to deal with on her own.
Her GP recommends a residential retreat in Wales called Nede. Upon arrival, Marianne decides that she decidedly isn't a fan of Nede's wellness menus or sanatorium vibe, but will admit that the forest-bathing aspect of the place is soothing. Finding a face from the past feels like finding a lifeline, but as the retreat's strange practices begin to get to her, Marianne starts looking for a way to escape this remote estate. Trouble is, the hairs on her back, now longer and more lush than they were before she arrived, seem to want her to stay...
Bluntly, I didn't understand the ending. There was a lot of interesting horror material here, but the pacing was just way to choppy for me, almost as if Sally Oliver couldn't decide whether she wanted this book to be speculative fiction or "serious" fiction. There was an irritatingly Sally Rooney vibe to the "serious" bits, such that I found Marianne unlikeable even before grief hollowed her out and caused her to behave badly. Ironically, her trauma actually gave her a valid reason to be so self-defeating, and thus made her relatable. I also had little patience for anyone in her sad sack family: these were people who'd chosen their paths and chose to be glum about their choices, but the narrative expected me to treat them like interesting people. They're not.
Far more interesting were the black hairs and Nede, which had strong Homecoming vibes. I wish these bits hadn't felt so underdeveloped, such that I didn't understand why the doctor was so satisfied at the close of the book. I did appreciate the allusion to Catherine Storr's classic novel Marianne Dreams, tho I didn't think that all of the ambitious themes and motifs quite landed otherwise. This novel would have really benefited from having more time and exposition devoted to its speculative parts, as that would have really helped clarify the extended metaphors being attempted here. Still, there's a lot of promise in this debut and y'know, if you were one of those people who catapulted Ms Rooney to fame, you might like this book too. If it serves as your gateway to the richness of speculative fiction, then so much the better!
Garden Of Earthly Bodies by Sally Oliver was published June 7 2022 by Harry N Abrams and is available from all good booksellers, including Bookshop!
7/1/2022 I must say, the American title is much better than the painfully generic The Weight Of Loss this novel was saddled with across the pond. Garden Of Earthly Bodies at least hints at the speculative fiction plot contained within these pages.
That plot is the story of Marianne, who is grieving the death of her beloved younger sister Marie. She lives with her boyfriend Richard in London, but feels a growing alienation from him as her depression and perverse refusal to listen to her doctors drives a wedge between them. When she wakes up one day to find a strange black hair growing out of her back, she doesn't really want to see anyone about it, since she mostly ignores medical advice anyway. But when efforts to remove both the first and subsequent hairs that begin springing up along her spine lead to a temporary madness, even she realizes that this is something way beyond her capacity to deal with on her own.
Her GP recommends a residential retreat in Wales called Nede. Upon arrival, Marianne decides that she decidedly isn't a fan of Nede's wellness menus or sanatorium vibe, but will admit that the forest-bathing aspect of the place is soothing. Finding a face from the past feels like finding a lifeline, but as the retreat's strange practices begin to get to her, Marianne starts looking for a way to escape this remote estate. Trouble is, the hairs on her back, now longer and more lush than they were before she arrived, seem to want her to stay...
Bluntly, I didn't understand the ending. There was a lot of interesting horror material here, but the pacing was just way to choppy for me, almost as if Sally Oliver couldn't decide whether she wanted this book to be speculative fiction or "serious" fiction. There was an irritatingly Sally Rooney vibe to the "serious" bits, such that I found Marianne unlikeable even before grief hollowed her out and caused her to behave badly. Ironically, her trauma actually gave her a valid reason to be so self-defeating, and thus made her relatable. I also had little patience for anyone in her sad sack family: these were people who'd chosen their paths and chose to be glum about their choices, but the narrative expected me to treat them like interesting people. They're not.
Far more interesting were the black hairs and Nede, which had strong Homecoming vibes. I wish these bits hadn't felt so underdeveloped, such that I didn't understand why the doctor was so satisfied at the close of the book. I did appreciate the allusion to Catherine Storr's classic novel Marianne Dreams, tho I didn't think that all of the ambitious themes and motifs quite landed otherwise. This novel would have really benefited from having more time and exposition devoted to its speculative parts, as that would have really helped clarify the extended metaphors being attempted here. Still, there's a lot of promise in this debut and y'know, if you were one of those people who catapulted Ms Rooney to fame, you might like this book too. If it serves as your gateway to the richness of speculative fiction, then so much the better!
Garden Of Earthly Bodies by Sally Oliver was published June 7 2022 by Harry N Abrams and is available from all good booksellers, including Bookshop!
May 20, 2022
[Read as an ARC through Edelweiss]
4.5 stars
Realistically, this book is a 4-star read. However, I felt so seen in the portrayal of mental illness and the beautiful prose with which it was delivered. I probably highlighted a third of the book. Also, anything (even remotely) related to nature immediately sparks my interest, so I loved the direction the ending took. And the cover??? So gorgeous.
The book does have some flaws. There was so much focus on the past rather than the main horror/speculative plot line. It felt like a contemporary literature book with an inkling of horror. While I deeply loved the focus on the sisters' relationship and past trauma, it felt overwhelmingly present, and it divided the book a bit awkwardly, making the pacing seem jagged. I would have loved if there was more equal focus and jumps between the past and present. It took a while for the present plot line to get started as well, so it seemed like the book’s direction took a somewhat random turn. The last third of the book is quite different from the rest and includes more fantastical elements than one would expect.
At times, the prose reached a level of ambiguity that was difficult to understand rather than provocative and artful. Sections with metaphorical ideas could quickly turn unintelligible in its attempt to be overly conceptual. Yet there were so many beautiful sections that were successfully abstract in just the right way that the brief confusions felt more like slip-ups rather than an overall mistake.
I was excited for this novel, and I was greatly rewarded with something even better than I anticipated: haunting, tragic, and bewitching. Anyway, this is now my emotional support novel, and I will be taking no further questions.
4.5 stars
Realistically, this book is a 4-star read. However, I felt so seen in the portrayal of mental illness and the beautiful prose with which it was delivered. I probably highlighted a third of the book. Also, anything (even remotely) related to nature immediately sparks my interest, so I loved the direction the ending took. And the cover??? So gorgeous.
The book does have some flaws. There was so much focus on the past rather than the main horror/speculative plot line. It felt like a contemporary literature book with an inkling of horror. While I deeply loved the focus on the sisters' relationship and past trauma, it felt overwhelmingly present, and it divided the book a bit awkwardly, making the pacing seem jagged. I would have loved if there was more equal focus and jumps between the past and present. It took a while for the present plot line to get started as well, so it seemed like the book’s direction took a somewhat random turn. The last third of the book is quite different from the rest and includes more fantastical elements than one would expect.
At times, the prose reached a level of ambiguity that was difficult to understand rather than provocative and artful. Sections with metaphorical ideas could quickly turn unintelligible in its attempt to be overly conceptual. Yet there were so many beautiful sections that were successfully abstract in just the right way that the brief confusions felt more like slip-ups rather than an overall mistake.
I was excited for this novel, and I was greatly rewarded with something even better than I anticipated: haunting, tragic, and bewitching. Anyway, this is now my emotional support novel, and I will be taking no further questions.
November 8, 2022
This had so much potential in its speculative horror elements, but felt too much like it was attempting to be profound. Most of the characters became insufferable instead, and it was difficult to empathize with their grief when they spent the majority of the book being resentful of the family member they lost.
October 24, 2022
There were some really great parts in this book hidden in between pointlessly long flashbacks.
October 3, 2024
The grief aspects to this story were really well done, it literally had me shedding tears and thats no easy feat! The element with the retreat Marianne is sent to I loved. It brought a very sinister and weird plot line to the 2nd half of the story, which I thought added intrigue and excitement to such a heavy feeling first half. The horror and weird elements were very effective for me as well! My only big complaint is that the section at the retreat felt short and rushed. I would have liked that developed and explored more. The grief aspect took up so much of the book and then the time at the retreat flew by. The story just felt a bit sloppy and rushed in the last quarter or so, which was a bummer, but I did feel satisfied with how it ended. This book wasn't perfect for me but overall I did really enjoy it and will definitely be looking out for more from this author! For a debut I thought this was really good! 3.5 rounded down to 3.
June 19, 2024
So weird. I like!
July 6, 2022
B o r i n g.
August 23, 2023
I read the last line of this book and out loud said ‘WHAT’.
And not in a oh my this is great I can’t believe it’s over. I genuinely do not understand the book.
And not in a oh my this is great I can’t believe it’s over. I genuinely do not understand the book.
January 9, 2025
I thought the blurb was promising but I ended up feeling removed from the story. Some parts of the story fell flat to me.
October 4, 2025
2.5 ⭐️ This was a “blind date” book I picked up at a bookstore and I think it may be the last time I do. This one sounded promising after reading the synopsis, but it didn’t live up for me. Timelines and events were confusing at the beginning, and it wasn’t until halfway through that things really picked up. And that ending… WHAT.
August 11, 2022
yeah, i didn’t like this. there was potential here for a very deep and meaningful portrayal of grief and what it does to everyone involved, but more than anything it was just a diluted mess of self-pity and shallow regret. i found every character in this book insufferable in some way or another. most everyone in this novel shows very little sympathy towards marie, the character they’re all meant to be grieving. marie is constantly blamed for her nihilistic demeanor, whether that be the straightforward way her mother phrases it, or the subtle way the rest of her family talks about her.
tl;dr almost everyone in this novel cares about no one but themselves, and they all make that increasingly obvious following marie’s death.
tl;dr almost everyone in this novel cares about no one but themselves, and they all make that increasingly obvious following marie’s death.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2025
the dangers of uninformed consent in an experiment lol. i hate to say i had high expectations for this book, and they just did not hit. the concept was pretty cool - strange hairs appearing on the body as a trauma response - but it was not executed well. the book has a vague sense of discomfort throughout, but that’s literally the only way the horror was effective. marianne’s experience at nede is foggy, and the neural hairs being connected to the earth kind of just makes no damn sense. the ending wasn’t satisfying, only really kind of sad. i could see that the author was kind of trying to enmesh the female body with the themes, but it just seemed exploitative and kind of gross at times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2024
Loved the idea, but did not like the execution. The timeline was all over the place which made it confusing and then once I figured out where we were in the story, it was often tedious.
I also learned that I hate the word “crotch” which makes too many appearances in this book.
I also learned that I hate the word “crotch” which makes too many appearances in this book.
May 24, 2023
am i missing something?
June 21, 2022
Garden of Earthly Bodies is a deep and thought-provoking book, the antithesis of beach reads that are in mass at this time
Months after a tragic family death, Marianne wakes up to find a growth of thick, black hairs along her spine. She tries to remove them but each attempt fails. Instead, the hairs grow longer. The hairs, Marianne’s doctor tells her, are a reaction to trauma. The doctor recommends Nede, a modern, New Age rehabilitation center in a remote forest in Wales. The patients attend unorthodox therapy sessions and commune with nature. As Marianne’s memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain. Yet something is amiss and Marianne can't quite figure out what is going on in the dark rooms in the basement? Why do some people get to leave? She begins to focus on her present instead of her past.
I felt like Sally Oliver spent 2way too much time in the past. It is the hair and her journey that the reader is most fascinated with. The draw out of the past caused me to skim many areas until we truly got the horrific and traumatic incident that plagues the main character. As we get to the end, I started to understand why so much time was spent on the past: that this was all-encompassing to the character and thus caused her anxiety and depression.
But the ending, while I had an inkling of what would happen, it was powerful and Oliver expresses the character's panic perfectly. The starkness of the conclusion was powerful in itself. Because it's Marianne's view, I felt like I was missing something; I wanted to know what happened next! But the ending is all-encompassing of Marine and who she is. It's actually pretty perfect.
This book is something else, something more than just a summer read. This is a deep look at depression and how nature affects it.
I received an ARC through the publisher; all opinions are my own.
Months after a tragic family death, Marianne wakes up to find a growth of thick, black hairs along her spine. She tries to remove them but each attempt fails. Instead, the hairs grow longer. The hairs, Marianne’s doctor tells her, are a reaction to trauma. The doctor recommends Nede, a modern, New Age rehabilitation center in a remote forest in Wales. The patients attend unorthodox therapy sessions and commune with nature. As Marianne’s memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain. Yet something is amiss and Marianne can't quite figure out what is going on in the dark rooms in the basement? Why do some people get to leave? She begins to focus on her present instead of her past.
I felt like Sally Oliver spent 2way too much time in the past. It is the hair and her journey that the reader is most fascinated with. The draw out of the past caused me to skim many areas until we truly got the horrific and traumatic incident that plagues the main character. As we get to the end, I started to understand why so much time was spent on the past: that this was all-encompassing to the character and thus caused her anxiety and depression.
But the ending, while I had an inkling of what would happen, it was powerful and Oliver expresses the character's panic perfectly. The starkness of the conclusion was powerful in itself. Because it's Marianne's view, I felt like I was missing something; I wanted to know what happened next! But the ending is all-encompassing of Marine and who she is. It's actually pretty perfect.
This book is something else, something more than just a summer read. This is a deep look at depression and how nature affects it.
I received an ARC through the publisher; all opinions are my own.
January 5, 2023
(3.5 rounded down) So... My main issue with this book was that it was so mired in backstory, which ate space for any of the "speculative" part (the last 50ish pages and they felt tacked onto the end). The whole book was too stuck in its own "stuck in grief" theme that it didn't progress in a satisfying way. I didn't mind the introspection or the characters, except that much of the introspection was repetitive and, again, bogged the story down rather than moving it forward. I even thought the "purple prose" worked fairly well - except when it didn't. I appreciated that the very end came full circle to a bit of "throwaway" in the beginning. I wish the speculative part was more and better; the last 1/4 of the novel could have been rewritten a dozen different ways without upsetting the rest of the book because it was so loosely tied to anything in the first 3/4 of the story.
August 23, 2023
I haven’t been this horrified in the worst way since I read a book about biomedical weapons in the form of butt worms.
August 13, 2024
2.5 stars
A snooze fest
A snooze fest
October 22, 2025
3.5 it’s her debut novel chill. At least she tried something fun; yall are haters
September 3, 2025
this book meant a lot to me. I related to it
May 28, 2024
I peeked at the ratings on this book once I finished it and they're horrible?? I can understand why some consider this slow and I do wish there was more to the end, but I still loved it. It's like how some people will read a cheesy romance and know that, technically, it is absolute garbage and should not even be considered literature, but they still love it anyway. This is the same for me, but the opposite. It was extremely self-indulgent, but call me the Catholic church cause I love me some indulgences. If it's a sin to love indulgent literature, I'll just buy an indulgence. If you have a problem with this, just write your little 95 theses and leave me alone. (Just some Catholic jokes. Hope these references are correct. Indulgence doesn't even feel like a real word anymore). Anywayyyy, I thought this was some really cool speculative fiction and had some really thought-provoking conversations about trauma and grief. The writing was beautiful (sometimes so beautiful that I had no idea what she was trying to say). This was the first book I had to look up "ending explained" like I do with a lot of A24 movies. I still don't know what the ending lines mean, but I want to figure it out, and I think that's a really exciting feeling that many books don't give me because they over-explain. Maybe this wasn't the book some people thought it would be, but it was perfect for me.
November 23, 2022
TW: suicidal ideation, terminal illness
overall I enjoyed this book, and enjoyed the voice I was getting from Sally Oliver. this was not a perfect book for me tho:
• why are there so many similar names ??? not that terrible I suppose, but in the age of audiobooks it felt kinda dumb
• I felt we took too long to get to Nede. I wish we would have started the book there and moved backwards in the “after” timeline, and then in the “before” timeline we move forward so they eventually meet in the middle
• the flippancy with which suicidal ideation/language is used troubles me bc:
- suicidal ppl DO hold their life in little regard but
- like almost everyone is at least a lil suicidal in this so it gets BLEAK
• opening on Marianne and Richard at home was such a weird choice to me. the focus on him and their incompatibility to start just felt unfulfilled as the story went on bc Richard was revealed to be not that important tbh and merely just a cog in Marianne’s depression factory
overall I enjoyed this book, and enjoyed the voice I was getting from Sally Oliver. this was not a perfect book for me tho:
• why are there so many similar names ??? not that terrible I suppose, but in the age of audiobooks it felt kinda dumb
• I felt we took too long to get to Nede. I wish we would have started the book there and moved backwards in the “after” timeline, and then in the “before” timeline we move forward so they eventually meet in the middle
• the flippancy with which suicidal ideation/language is used troubles me bc:
- suicidal ppl DO hold their life in little regard but
- like almost everyone is at least a lil suicidal in this so it gets BLEAK
• opening on Marianne and Richard at home was such a weird choice to me. the focus on him and their incompatibility to start just felt unfulfilled as the story went on bc Richard was revealed to be not that important tbh and merely just a cog in Marianne’s depression factory
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 14, 2022
The premise of this book definitely was one that captured something so different and speculative that I was immediately drawn to it. The idea of the black hairs along the spine was so creepy and there really didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to what made them grow, shrink, or attach. I really struggled with becoming invested in the story. I did not really get the sense of the true experience that Marianne was having and did not really feel her connection to her sister that led to her trauma. It was hard to be disconnected and to understand where Marianne was coming from. I did like the atmosphere in the retreat and I believe the isolation added an extra edge to the book that made it more horrific and captured my interest. I still cannot say I understand what happened during the attachment scene, but it was definitely one of the oddest things I have ever read. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley. I think that this book missed the mark for me.
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