A quintessential literary novel: follows all of the trade marks of the genre, which, in this case, work to the book's advantage and were masterfully executed.

Beautiful, impactful writing that makes you want to reread the book immediately after finishing it. There are many things this book said that will stay with me for some time.

Lou is a sympathetic main character -- it is easy to like her and to emphasize with her experiences. The way in which her experiences are shown to affect her is incredibly realistic. Lou is complex and she doesn't know herself fully -- watching her slowly discover more about herself is truly a special experience.

I have never been a model, have no experience within that world but the modeling world portrayed within this book is magnetic; you can't look away from it, it draws you in and then reveals it's darker sides.

The side characters are all incredibly vibrant, impossible to forget. Each of them has their own, unique story happening off the page, something we never get to see fully. The way in which different identities are casually represented within this book is refreshing.

Overall, most definitely a book to check out if you enjoy literary novels and stories about feeling lost.

Sad and beautiful, tragic and perfection, I devoured this book in a few hours. I love the voice Ohman gives to Lou, her descriptions of tragedy and how they affect and change a person feel nuanced and true to the story being told. I rooted for Lou from beginning to end, wanting to wrap her in a warm blanket and a hug, and cannot wait to put this novel on my classroom shelves!

This is such a beautifully written novel. Each writing choice makes sense and Ohman creates an authentic world in the midst of what feels like very fake images. The juxtaposition of the world of modeling and the trauma the girls in this novel experience is striking.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why I was so moved by this story but I was instantly pulled in and stayed that way until the end.

Lots of representation and fluidity of sexuality.

These days I always tell myself that I am too old to read and connect to a coming of age story, so usually dismiss them as not for me. The blurb for this one, however, spoke to me, and not because my life mirrors Lou's life but because I felt there would be elements here - like the exploration of gender, finding a sense of self, and learning to inhabit one's own body - that I could connect to. And I was right. This is a gorgeous book, and one that I wish I could have read years ago when I was 18 and directionless.

Two things struck me the most:

(1) I am an older Millennial and I think it's easy for people my age and older to dismiss the feelings of teenagers as unimportant and to consider the challenges they face insignificant when compared to the challenges adults my age and older face. But this book is written in such a way that it somehow evoked my 18 year old self. Rather than experience Lou's story from a distance, as an adult disconnected from this teenager on page, I felt more like a friend along for the ride and witnessing Lou's journey alongside her as it unfolds. As a result, her struggles felt very real and very relatable to me.

(2) There is a sometimes subtle exploration of gender here that I found very relatable. At the start, Lou feels disconnected from her body, as though it's something separate from her Self. And because those two things - body and Self - don't inhabit the same space in her mind, she feels almost dysphoric (I'm using this word; the author does not use this word) when she's scouted by modeling agents who value her as a body rather than a whole person (body + Self). This book is about making that connection between body and Self, and through that, discovering who you are and what direction you want to take in life. Though she never states her sexuality and gender, I think we're intended to believe that Lou is possibly a gender nonconforming lesbian. She does not identify as trans, but I think my trans and non-binary friends will find aspects of the development of Lou's relationship with her body to be relatable. As an agender person, this element of the story certainly resonated with me.

This is a beautiful book and there is a lot in here to digest. I can't wait to read it again.

It's so refreshing to read a messy, lost queer character who does not have all the answers--and isn't even sure what questions to ask. BODY GRAMMAR by Jules Ohman is beautifully written and surprisingly grounded given that so much of it is set in the fashion industry. Lou's story is one of trying to find your way as an individual as well as within your family, including found family. Characters lift each other up, whether it's through offering food or advice or a place to live or an outlet for their art across generations, which is one of the best parts of this novel.

BODY GRAMMAR fell short in two places: 1. Lou never seemed to suffer from her choices (or lack of making decisions). Everything always worked out: a super-successful career, places to live, etc., without Lou really having to work for anything. It missed an opportunity to examine privilege in terms of race, socio-economic status, body shape, and others.

The second miss was regarding the title BODY GRAMMAR. It's a phenomenal title, but there was very little of Lou learning how to use her body for work or otherwise. I had hoped for a more visceral experience, with a character who truly learns to occupy and live in her flesh. However, Lou always felt very ephemeral and unattached to her physical presence.

Still, I'm so appreciative to have read the e-galley and I know this is a book that will come up with some of my summer students. No doubt I'll recommend it and then ask my students how they responded to Lou.

Recommended For—
💜 Lovers of slow burn coming-of-age romance
💜 Fans of WLW storylines and a diverse cast of characters
💜 Readers with an interest in the world of modeling, fashion, and photography

This book is quiet, contemplative, and melancholy. The setting feels timeless as though it belongs to no specific era. If not for the mentions of social media, I would have guessed it took place in the 80s or 90s. The book has such an interesting dichotomy because Lou clearly has a unique, sought after look in the modeling world and she almost effortless catapults into the scene… but, does she even want it?

Therein lies the dilemma of Body Grammar. Lou and her friends experience a traumatic event together, but instead of being trauma bonded through that experience, they all seem to fling themselves in different directions. Lou’s goal at that point is to just get out. She wants to get away from her secret crush on her friend Ivy; she wants to get away from the grief and the guilt. There’s also a part of Lou that doesn’t want the tragedy to be in vain. She wants to pursue something concrete.

But regardless of where she lives, how many shows she books, or how many international flights she takes, Lou can’t get away from the morose longing she has for her friend back home or the guilt of what happened. She finds herself enjoying modeling well enough, but does she like it more than photography? Lou feels like the further she gets into the modeling scene, the further she separates herself from the individuality that once made her who she was.

A slow burn, meditative examination of coming-of-age, self-identity, and finding love against the backdrop of the modeling world, I think this book will speak to its readers. For me, I enjoyed the book quite a bit although it did take a while for me to finish. I didn’t find it to be enthralling, especially in the beginning, but once I got into it the backend half went pretty quickly. I do wish we had more information on some of the characters earlier in the book because I think it would have helped to connect to them more easily, but I still appreciated the book taking its time.


Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Body Grammar by Jules Ohman follows Lou, who after seeing a deadly accident, leaves her hometown to pursue a modeling career. She kind of falls into modeling and finds herself along the way. She loses contact with most of her friends from back home, and we follow her into the messy modeling world, and then we follow her as she finds her way out of it. In terms of the usual young woman goes through the motions and finds herself at the end stories, I really liked this one.

I felt a bit at arms' length at points, but I liked the characters enough to keep going. I would've liked to go a little deeper with some of the side characters, but what's on the page works well enough for me.

Jules Ohman has a wonderful way with words, vivid and descriptive and wonderfully emotional. This is not a full-throttled bildungsroman but one that hits you in all the soft spots in ways you don't even realize until long after it's over. I really loved Lou as a character, who was constantly at war with her own emotions and sometimes in denial of them but always really genuine. Her group of friends/acquaintances was also really well-drawn and relatable - I've known quite a few people like Harrison and Mari in my younger years so I found them very endearing.

I would have loved a more conclusive ending, but then, in a way, it was conclusive in its own way and left just as it should have been. There was just something very sweet and innocent about Body Grammar, not in an immature way but almost in a nostalgic one. Who among us can't remember searching for something we couldn't quite put our finger on while that very thing was right in front of us all the time?

Thanks to NetGalley, as always, for the ARC.

I think coming of age stories are my favorites. I was intrigued to read this one- about Lou, just graduated from high school in Oregon, figuring out her next steps and feelings about her friend, Ivy.

After a tragic accident in her hometown Lou finds herself entering into the world of modeling while still feeling tethered to the feelings and events of home.

Interesting premise, built around Lou feeling lost, but the story feels lost. The tragic accident doesn’t carry the weight it out to considering its emphasis, and Lou seems to fall into one situation or friendship after another will little effort or struggle. Clearly she is struggling, yet her depiction is so lacking inertia that it all falls flat.

Thank you Netgalley for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Body Grammar revolved around LGBTQIA+, identity, bodies and your place in the world, but also about the modeling industry and fashion.

This story was suprisingly very comforting and kind of cozy. I adore Lou for her sweet and relatable character. Also her way to deal with her PTSD. It was a fun ride with her through her own journey to find herself. It made me question sometimes my place in the world. It is also reflective for the reader itself.

So, overall I absolutely enjoyed this read. The world needs more books like this one. Thank you Jules Ohman for this masterpiece!

It's a little surprising how charming, comforting, and, in equal measure, melancholy this novel is. At its core, it's a novel about young adults trying to figure out their lives, as any of us do, when nothing seems to make sense. Characters are all well-realized, with author Jules Ohman taking special care to highlight the hidden arcs that everyone is going through at any given point in time, with glimpses of the full stories of people's lives, from coming to terms with gender and sexuality, to relationships with parents, to dreams and aspirations. There's a barrage of characters in this novel that would feel overwhelming if handled incorrectly, but instead serves to highlight the complexities of lives outside our own.

Lou is a wonderful character and largely feels realistic and relatable. It's easy for me to take issue with how anxiety is treated in novels, but here it seems to be handled gracefully and in a way that shows how different people's experiences can be with it. I would take issue with how easily and smoothly everything falls into place for Lou when it comes to modeling, but I feel to some degree that there's necessary irony to this - the fact that what falls so easily into place might not be the right thing for her, and what she wants might be harder to work toward, even if it doesn't pay the same material dividends.

Despite some perhaps too stringent and deliberate arcs, the story is done well, and really hinges on the effectiveness of the characters. The novel pretty much broadcasts which storylines and loose ends would be dealt with by the end, to the point where the more surprising result would be for some things to be left up in the air. But I think it's fair for some semblance of joy and satisfaction to be aimed for here.

Also, except for some sets of parents and some dialogueless characters, pretty much every single character in this is explicitly queer, to the point where you might question the realism of it all (to be clear: none of it is actually outside the realm of possible reality), but this is probably a suitable salve to the vast majority of literature, which either excludes queerness or contains it only in subtext. This also plays into the novel's empathetic tapestry of characters, as it can show the extremes to which people can differ in their experiences with identity struggles that are superficially similar.

A queer novel set in the world of high fashion.
A romance is at the center of the novel. Even as a terrible accident happens, the grief and future of the surviving woman propels the book along.
Learning to be a high fashion model despite living in a body that she has never loved leads to great pondering and an examination of who we are, in love and in grief.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. The characters, plot, and writing were well developed and beautifully balanced. Though it’s very much a coming of age story, the characters felt mature, and their experiences will resonate with regardless of your age.

Jules Ohman combines the feelings of not knowing who you are or what you want to do with the weight of grief, and mixes in the confusion of first loves to form an enchanting, engaging story that settles into their reader’s chest and rests there. It’s also a story that doesn’t center coming out as queer as a portion of the coming of age story which is rare to find in literature, and great to see normalized.

This was a quick and easy read and I liked the idea of seeing the predatory fashion world through a queer lens, but I kept asking myself when the actual plot was going to kick in. There's a lot of repetitive (and predictable) situations with Lou navigating the industry in the midsection and not a lot of conflict besides being separated from Ivy. Also felt like some of the secondary characters (particularly New York friends/industry people) that felt a bit thin and the characters from Lou's past in Oregon were more fascinating. Besides all that, i liked Ohman's prose and loved how queer this was and especially how it avoided turning into a tacky and lurid Jackie Collins novel about terrible people doing terrible things.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this title. Give me ALL the books about young queers finding themselves! I loved every minute of this book and would also love a sequel. A great exploration of grief, growth, and relationships.

A reflective coming-of-age story on identity, the body, and one's place in the world, BODY GRAMMAR is an effortlessly queer read, albeit repetitive at times and one whose central relationship I can't quite connect to.

I find Lou's oft alternating positions of being viewed at and the one viewing interesting, as well as her character growth. Another thing I enjoy is how supportive and non-toxic Lou's model friends are, a refreshing change from the cliché portrayal of the modeling world's pettiness. Of course, the countless multidimensional queer characters are great as well, particularly how many of them remain friends even after ending their romantic relationships. Additionally, the last couple chapters are particularly emotional and touching, elevating the rest of the book.

However, the story could get repetitive at times, with Lou going through the same conflicts and thought processes throughout much of the book, thus affecting the pacing. I also can't really connect to Ivy and Lou's relationship; it falls a little flat for me and I fail to see what they see in each other as there isn't really any scenes that portrays their bond aside from the first chapter. Their tendencies to bottle things up and refusal to talk things out - despite being aware that it's better to do so - make them doubly frustrating.

Nonetheless, this is an enjoyable enough read, and I recommend it for anyone looking for a coming-of-age or queer story, or an inside look into the modeling world.

This was such a sweet, quick read. I might not care about modeling but I definitely care about queer kids figuring their shit out and being honest and messy.

This was such an amazing story about the modeling industry and the importance we place on appearance. It was really interesting to see how the author showed the way women's body's are seen as a commodity. It was fun and hilarious in all the right places, and on top of it all it was a queer love story!! Lou's dialogue is so unique and the story did a great job at thrusting you into the, sometimes weird, modeling community. Body Grammar was sharp and one that I couldn't put down.

Body Grammar is an incredibly sharp coming of age story that LGBTQIA+ people rarely get to claim. Lou, the primary character, is relatable in how she comes to reckoning with PTSD, and how that affects her confidence, body, and position in the world. While I didn't particularly relate to her unfulfilled love, it's all part of her realization of who she wants to be. Stumbling through the world is an important part of recognizing what you want from it, and Body Grammar exceeds in that storytelling. This novel is sexy and endearing, and a fun one to look out for.

Such a beautiful story about the model industry and growign into your own body,! The author definitely did a great job with this book!