This book was honestly bizarre. It was way overdone in some places and way under-developed in others. It seems like the author just wanted an excuse to write about her inner life without much of a plot. I wish I found something redeeming about it apart from the fact that it is queer literature, but I did not. Elsa was irritating and thought way too much. She was selfish in ways that I would like a protagonist to not be. Sam was likable, but felt like they barely merited a mention. Sam felt like an afterthought.

I found the first half of Madison Newbound’s debut novel, Misrecognition, a bit trying to be honest. Like Elsa, the protagonist, I felt listless and purposeless, drifting through the pages. Nothing was driving me forward other than habit: start a book, read the book. That’s commitment, I suppose, if not particularly exciting.

It's a familiar story to an extent. Elsa, rebounding from a painful breakup with an unnamed couple, referred to as the man and the woman, retreats to her childhood home. She does what so many young, heartbroken people do – scroll the internet, seeking relief from her thoughts and heartache. The only thing that gives her some focus is her newfound infatuation with the actor-character (a stand-in for Timothée Chalamet). He captures her attention after she watches a movie (Call Me By Your Name, though unnamed) with her parents one evening.

Then, a bit of contrived book magic: the actor-character shows up in her small town, there for the summer for a theater run. Elsa’s fixation continues until she encounters an intriguing person from his orbit, awkwardly referred to as the person called Sam. I read it as a way for Newbound to mark the "before" and "after" of Elsa's connection with Sam, but it became annoying after the first few times.

I nearly DNF-ed this book a third of the way through. Elsa's aimlessness in the first few chapters left me equally adrift. Too much of it, too drawn out. There were a few notable scenes: the flashback to Elsa's relationship with the man and the woman, Sam and Elsa's swimming scene, and their final night together. Newbound writes the anticipation of desire effectively in the charged scenes between Elsa and Sam – the slightest touches and the tension between them.

It's when the person called Sam transitions to being just Sam that the plot gains momentum. However, I wanted to know more about Elsa's past. Her prior relationship with the man, and especially with the woman, is only teased at. Similarly, the brief arc of her friendship with Caro feels unresolved.

I've been Elsa – lost after a split, trying to piece together who I am outside the definitions of the person I was with. Yet, there was nothing about Elsa specifically that made me love or strongly like her. And perhaps that’s what Newbound intended? To make Elsa a blank slate, an everywoman allowing us to project our own longings onto her the same way she does with the actor-character.

In the end, Misrecognition is a shelf for me. It’s a quick, entertaining read with mild spice. Had the pace of the second half been consistent throughout the whole book, I might have been more enthusiastic.

This is a SHELVE.

Painfully mundane for the first half. I thought I was the target audience as I love contemporary fiction involving 20-something women and a queer element is all the better. However, after finishing this book, I am clearly not the target audience. The prose was good but it lacked a tie to the physical world. I do not want to be stuck in someone’s head while they watch Marie Kondo, a beauty vlogger, or while they contemplate masturbating over and over. It lacked a physical tie in a way essays do. It only picked up once she finally began to interact with people. I’ll give this author the benefit of the doubt that maybe it was intentional to synthesize for the reader the depression Elsa was experiencing.

I’m sure many people who pick this up will enjoy it. It reminds me a lot of We Do What We Do in the Dark. I found it to be pretentious in some ways and proof that excellent writing at a micro, sentence level does not equate a well written book. In my opinion, even a character study requires some sort of structure to pull the reader along, which this lacked for a large portion of the book, That said, market it as a book for hot girls and it will become a TikTok sweetheart.

I did really enjoy the incessant social media stalking and limerence. People who are drawn to this book will relate to that. The Timothee Chalamet character was such a silly (in a good way) element to have and kept me going when I wanted to not finish this book. The second half when Elsa begins to have real life interactions is when the book became enjoyable. I would probably have rated this a 4/5 if the first half was removed and this was left to be more of a novella. I liked that everything with the friend (Cora?), her parents, and Sam were all left vague and that Elsa’s life hadn’t gotten much better.

Lastly, I don’t think the description matches the book well. Even if it’s not my taste, it’s definitely not funny. I also didn’t find it to be “unflinching” as there was no real commentary. Nothing within the book supports the claim that her relationship with the man and woman was formative, exhilarating, nor were they cultural guideposts, I would’ve liked more focus on Elsa repeating patterns, I think the description made me expect more discussion on social interactions and toxic patterns. Overall, I think the description sells a book with underlying social commentary and instead the book delivers long drawn out descriptions of mundane things with very little “unflinching,” “uncomfortable” analyses.

I really tried to finish this book but I could not fully get immersed into it to do so. I am finally calling it quits after it’s sat partially finished in my Kindle app for over a month. I found the author’s voice and writing style to be interesting and unique. I just wish the story did a little more to grab you in the beginning to give a little more pull of intensity for the reader!

Thank you to the publisher for the arc!

I’m sad I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would. The story seemed right up my alley. I just didn’t end up liking any of the characters.

misrecognition follows Elsa as they grapple with heartbreak, moving home, crushes, and fixations.

thank you netgalley for this arc!!

i really loved the overall illusion of the crush aspect (even though it was def timothy chalamet). i think this book had an interesting take on how social media stalking can change our current relationships, how one summer can change everything, and how weird gender is.

there was plenty of prose next to regular sentences which kept the story from being all too bulky. i also enjoyed how spread out all the information about Elsa was. Yes we know she just went through a break up, but then many pages later we get the full story and then pages later we get the backstory, it kept me pulled into reading.

the only thing i wish there was more of was the best friend! what happened to her? she just fell out of the rest of the book!

anyways worth a read imo.