Sophie Ward's LOVE AND OTHER THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS is one of the most clever, engaging, and thought-provoking books I've read in a while. Questions surrounding the nature of consciousness—what does it mean to be conscious, how much can we truly trust our perception—have been on my mind at work, especially after reading THE WORLD ITSELF by Ulf Danielsson (forthcoming from Bellevue in 2023). And I've always enjoyed books that engage with the philosophical and psychological in turn. This book does it beautifully.

This is a brilliantly constructed novel with ten chapters that rotate around an initial story: a couple, Rachel and Eliza, decide to have a child. From here, we experience several points of view, even the point of view of an ant, through the lens of a different philosophical thought experiment (e.g., Gilbert Harman's "brain in a vat"). Sometimes I'm disappointed when I connect with the initial perspective and find it changed to another character's perspective in the next chapter, but each narrative voice in this book is so excellently and emotionally rendered that I was captivated all the way through. The novel can be read and enjoyed, I think, without delving too deep into the underlying questions about consciousness and time, but it's an even richer experience if you *do* choose to engage on that level.

This is definitely going on my "must re-read shelf," and Ward is going on my list of authors to follow because MAN. What a book. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy. No thanks to COVID-related burnout that caused me to wait so long to read this book.

Rachel and Eliza are planning their future together. One night in bed Rachel wakes up terrified and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. Rachel is certain; Eliza, a scientist, is sceptical.
Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question.

Y'all, this book is absolutely wild. Like, WILD.

What starts as a contemporary novel about what makes a family and grief quickly turns into... science fiction? I am not even completely sure. to be honest 😅

A lot of it went over my head a little - especially the last quarter. Can absolutely see why it was up for the Booker!

Special thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my own opinion.

I was so surprised going in to this.I requested it because my interest was piqued. I think I was expecting not to like it and was very pleasantly surprised that not only was it very good but I found you can sit back and enjoy it or really get in there and take away some very interesting thoughts by scientists and intellectuals that lead to some very interesting questions about and surrounding a couple, Eliza and Rachel whose desire to have a baby and the unexpected consequences that happen to them over time was so interesting to me. While their story is the central focus of the book, the different thought experiments by the scientists that raise interesting questions surrounding them, was a really rather unique experience for me. I don't think I've ever read a book so original. 5 stars!