This was my 15th read of the year, and it was the first book I’ve rated 5 stars. I’m excited to buy a copy on 5/23! I want to use this book in my classroom by picking out mentor sentence examples while doing a re-read that I can utilize as models in creative writing lessons. I found a lot of personal connections between myself and the main character, Natalie. I felt like I was re-living my freshman year of college through this book because of her character and the setting. The writing is gorgeous. The way that Bronwyn Fischer writes frequently took my breath away while reading.

One of the most breathtaking novels I’ve read. Follow 18 year old Natalie, a freshman in college, as she meets Nora, an older woman who will utterly consume her experiences, thoughts, dreams, and inner world. The prose is evocative and rich. When Natalie goes home to the rural town where she is from over Christmas break, the claustrophobia of being closeted in your childhood home was so tangible and real that I felt transported back to my own days of being closeted in rural Missouri. I am undone, I am devastated, and I will be thinking about Natalie for a very long time.

This is very good. It’s what it says on the tin — if it sounds like something you’d like, you’ll probably like it — but it also managed to surprise me. The title is apt — it’s a love story (of sorts), but it’s also very much a coming-of-age story about figuring out what it means to be an adult and how to be one. It has painfully/hilariously awkward freshman dorm socializing, and trying to figure out what kinds of alcohol you like, and going to a sex shop for the first time. I love all the things Natalie googles (“things to ask people you don’t know,” “how to date an older woman,” “people that date people older than them”), and the random and highly specific YouTube videos she watches (“crunchy chicken cooked in the middle of the forest (NO TALKING),” “12 *actually* good classic book recommendations”).

My main complaint: I love books about characters who are obsessed (romantically or otherwise) with another character, but as a reader I want to be able to see the appeal of the object of obsession, and in this book I couldn’t really. I saw the appeal of Oliver in Call Me By Your Name (which is not to say I’d condone that relationship in real life), and in The World Cannot Give I found Virginia fascinating (even though I’d hate her if she was a real person). But in this book I just didn’t find Nora that compelling a character, especially at the beginning. She’s a bit more interesting later on, when you realize the extent of the bad choices she’s made, but when the protagonist finds her most interesting is when I found her the least interesting.

A smaller complaint: I think this book portrays grant writers as much richer than they actually are! How on earth would a grant writer afford a nice house in an upscale neighborhood of one of the most expensive cities in North America? AND afford fertility treatments??

But, overall, I really liked this. Now that I've finished it, I don't feel like reading any of my other books in progress, because I don't like any of them as much as I liked this one.

Recommended for fans of We Do What We Do in the Dark or My Education.

Bronwyn Fisher is a master of first-person narration. I cannot remember the last time I felt so connected to the thoughts and emotions of a character. I cared so much for Natalie! I could have very easily found her insecurities and naivety annoying, but instead, I found myself rooting for her in the hope that she would become stronger and more self-confident. I just wanted her to be ok!
Natalie is an 18-year-old young woman who is moving away from home for the first time. She is off to university, and all the “things” university entails. New information, new perspectives, new friends, new loves, new new new…which all ends up so confusing for someone like Natalie, who second guesses everything she says and everything she does.
Early in the novel, Natalie meets Nora, an older woman with whom she starts a romantic relationship. Although Nora seems authentic with her feelings towards Natalie at first, we (and Natalie) soon begin to suspect that there is more to Nora than meets the eye.

Even though I figured out Nora’s secret before Natalie did (I think we are meant to), I dreaded waiting and watching how Natalie would react. I truly didn’t want her to be brokenhearted because I didn’t know if she would be strong enough to recover!

Wonderful book. I will definitely read more from Bronwyn Fisher.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

Beautifully written and told, I think it really captured the feeling of just starting college and being alone. Other than that it didn't stick with me that much story wise.

It is crazy to me this was a debut. This is exactly my kind of book. I saw it described as having a similar style to ‘Conversations with Friends’ and I would have to agree. It had a very indie moody vibe that I couldn’t get enough of. A coming of age story and a coming out story. I thought the characters were fascinating and so reminded me of moving out on my own and when we all felt and acted older than we really were. When we fell in and out of love and in and out of bars. When we made it to class, and then again when we didn’t. There is so much here but never felt like too much.

Goodreads tells us
“Eighteen-year-old Natalie has just arrived at her first year of university in Toronto, leaving her remote, forested hometown for the big, impersonal city. Everyone she encounters seems to know exactly who they are. Chatty, confident Clara from down the hall, who wants to be her friend; intense, determined Rachel from her poetry class, who is going to be a writer. Natalie doesn't know what she wants. She reads advice listicles and watches videos online and thinks about how to fit in, how to really become someone, who that someone even is.

Just as she is trying to find her footing, she meets Nora, an older woman who takes an unexpected interest in her. Natalie is drawn magnetically into Nora's orbit. She begins spending more and more of her time off-campus at Nora's perfect home living in her beautiful, quiet world. She lies to her floormates about her absence, inventing a secret boyfriend called Paul, and carefully protects this intimate, sacred adulthood she is building for herself. But when it becomes clear that Nora is lying, too, her secrets begin to take an insidious shape in Natalie's life, even as Natalie tries to look away. What, or who, is Nora hiding?”

I have already been recommending this book and will most likely buy myself a copy when it is released. I really enjoyed it.

Many thanks to our author, Netgalley and Algonquin Books for providing me with an advanced eGalley copy of the book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This will be released on May 23rd, 2023 and I hope if you choose to read it you enjoy it also.

I loved this coming of age story! Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy for the purpose of this review. 5 stars!

The writing is excellent and I devoured all of it quickly. The main character is a freshman in college and navigating through her first relationship. It happens to be with an older woman.

I enjoyed the characters and the campus setting. The book explored what it was like to be away from home and suddenly living with new people. Meeting new friends and taking classes.

I really think the author did a fantastic job telling this story!

Oh my god, this book?? I read this in one long stretch even though it was late on a work night and my eyes hurt. This has one of my favorite, most compelling opening lines/scenes I've read in a long time. And then it never let up! I truly loved this one. This novel follows a college freshman who ends up in a secret relationship with an older woman she meets while working on a poetry project off campus. It's hard to discuss the relationship itself without spoiling the book, but I can say it's *very* gay and ends up (unsurprisingly) very messy. This novel handles the good and bad of secrets really masterfully (exciting, but also lonely) and manages to humanize all the players--including the older woman's soon-to-be ex-wife, who ends up colliding with the narrator's world in a surprising yet perfectly plotted way. This one feels like an ache in my heart I already want to revisit.