As a fan of Gatwood's poetry collection Life of the Party, I was equally excited and grateful to read her fiction debut early. I love when poets write long form fiction, not only because they naturally have a great command of language, but I personally feel they're able to articulate originally small or obscure feelings and occurrences with a clarity that makes you appreciate them in a new way. Gatwood is no exception to this! I flew through Whoever You Are, Honey with ease and it was filled with little moments that made me think "god, that's exactly how that felt." I do wish there had been more of the murder plot line, as well as a deeper exploration of Mitty's before timeline - I could feel the former looming in the back the whole time, but it didn't really get it's moment (for me). Ultimately though, I do love this book for what it is and the more I reflect on the title and its relation to the story and its female characters, the more the love grows! I hope Gatwood continues to write fiction and I continue to get to read it!

This one had a lot of potential, but it just didn't come together in the end. The writing is, for the most part, okay, but there are occasionally strange or awkward descriptions that jolted me out of the story. The narrative itself is slow-paced, with a lot of telling and not as much showing. Altogether I felt like this one lacked substance. There was a lot, thematically, to explore, but it just didn't go there.

Beautifully written, eerie, and contemplative. Whoever You Are, Honey explores desire, agency, escape, technology, and friendship in interesting ways. I think it could have gone a bit deeper in this exploration but I also appreciate the unfinished / open-endedness I was left with as a reader.

I loved Mitty, Lena, and Bethel and their interactions. This is a tense, intriguing, and enjoyable read that I highly recommend.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the digital ARC. I devoured this strange, gorgeously written story. The sci-fi elements mesh well with the overall lit fic tone, and some of the flashbacks tell me that Oliva Gatwood has got to have at least one amazing young adult book in her. I loved how well she captures the insidious nature of loneliness and how it can impact the way you interact with the world. The characters and the Santa Cruz/Arizona settings were so vivid, and the relationships all felt very believably messy and complicated. It was a little grislier than I expected, which I loved. It wasn't perfect — certain elements felt a little twee (not necessarily a bad thing) and the word "grin" was used about a thousand times — but I loved this book. It doesn't remind me of anything super specific, but it has elements of "Klara and the Sun" by Kazuo Ishiguro, maybe some Emma Cline, maybe some Melissa Broder. I'll def be preordering, and will probably re-read when it's published this summer.