I really enjoyed this! Made me think and kept me engaged. I wasn’t sure how necessary the middle part was with the perspective shift, I don’t feel that added much and seemed a bit disruptive to the flow.

This wasn’t a struggle to read, but it was a patchy experience, at times appealing and evocative, with interesting layers, at others tedious and excessively theoretical.
Several couples, complicatedly connected. A lot of psychoanalytic material, sometimes being taught, at others lived and analyzed. This was always going to make for a lumpy narrative, and so it proves, with the switches of point-of-view and the lurches in relationships. Suffice to say Elkins keeps a straight face throughout and delivers some charming stuff alongside the other, more brainiac and self conscious bits. I don’t think I’m recommending it. But she herself is interesting.

An excellent novel that reminded me of the 1996 French film L'Appartement. An incredible amount of upheaval, desire and intrigue takes place in Anna's life, and at the end, her life goes back to normal. Anna is a psychoanalyst struggling to come to terms with the trauma of a miscarriage. It forces her to examine her marriage and whether she is satisfied in it, and whether monogamy is a valid choice. It also highlights the secrets people choose to keep instead of talking to their partners, and asks: how well do you really know anyone? It's very playful, and demonstrates a real love and knowledge of Paris.

This is a bold and mesmering novel about love, desire, identity and relationships.I enjoyed reading Lauren Elkin's ‘Art Monsters’ last year and was naturally curious about this. I was intrigued after reading the outline on how it's about two couples who live in the same apartment in Paris fifty years apart.

The book is split into three sections. The first section is set in 2019, with Anna being the main character. Anna is a psychoanalyst in her late 30s who is suffering from a miscarriage, with her husband being based in London. Elkin then starts telling the story of how she befriends Clémentine, a younger art history graduate.

The second section is set in 1972, and it's about Florence (also a psychoanalyst) and her husband, Henry. Florence would really like to start a family and Henry isn't keen. One thing leads to another and we find them having affairs with other people. The third section brings us back to late 2019, where Anna meets with her past lover, Jonathan, who is now in a relationship with Clémentine. I won't spoil it any further, but let's just say it's quite unusual. It explores many things, including queerness, experimentation and open relationships, which I wasn't expecting. I also found myself being more interested in psychoanalysis after reading this book.

“There is so much we will never know about other people, no matter how much we love them, or how much time we spend with them. We can know all of their mannerisms, know intimately their bodily odours, the schedule they shit on, recognise the very scent of their wind. We like to think this takes all the mystery, all the magic, out of a life together, but there will remain inexorably something unreachable about them. Try as we may, we grasp and can’t lay hold of their essence; there is always something that escapes.”

Really good.

God, I love women. Lauren Elkin is a magician.

These characters are so real. The Parisian backdrop whisked me away. Elkin's prose is enchanting. If you don't love a vibes only book then this is not for you, but if you can appreciate the realism of life and its slow pace, you're in for a treat. I love a book about womanhood and yearning and this didn't disappoint. Very excited to see what Lauren Elkin does next!

Scaffolding is, without doubt, the best debut novel I've read all year (perhaps even one of the best I've ever read). For fans of Rachel Cusk, Deborah Levy, and Lorrie Moore, this is a captivating exploration of the rich, sharp, complexity of relationships - the complications of entwined minds, lives, and bodies - one written with prose which is both tender and clever, laced with humour and heartbreak in equal measures.

Thank you so much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for this free e-ARC!

How well do we really know the people we love?
This is the question that Elkin poses in Scaffolding through a winding narrative of intertwined characters who inhabit the same space but in different decades. I found her writing to be poignant, captivating and reflective. I would normally be put off by a book that started off mentioning so many academic themes I was unfamiliar with by this book made them accessible in an unpatronizing way.

Something about this book didn't click with me, and I'm bummed! Set in the same apartment in Belleville, Paris in 1970 and 2019, we explore the complexities of marriage, monogamy, and desire through two couples. The premise alone had me racing to NetGalley to request this ARC, but unfortunately this book missed the mark for me. I found the jump from one timeline to the next to be awkwardly placed, and would've appreciated more connections between the two couples other than the apartment. I did really enjoy how Elkin portrayed how motherhood and the longing for a child can affect marriages. There were some really beautiful and poignant moments, but unfortunately it didn't save the story for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this title!

Two couples live in the same Parisian apartment, one now, one back in the 1970s. Both couples have issues about desire and selfhood and what they want their lives to look like, and are redecorating the apartment.

Not my favorite, and I can't exactly put my finger on why. There's an intellectualism and essayistic bent (so much Lacan!?) and a somber, thinky self-consciousness that all of the characters have that makes them feel slightly unreal. The actions and changing relationships between the characters feel overly designed and happen very quickly, compared to the slow thought of the rest of the book. I didn't really believe the main character was French or a psychoanalyst.

I like Lauren Elkin's writing—her book of essays about taking the bus in Paris is great—but I feel like the style didn't settle into a novel for me.

Elkin's "Scaffolding" delicately explores themes of feminism, queerness, and desire, offering a nuanced look at human connections. While some concepts may seem complex initially, Elkin's elegant prose makes them accessible and engaging, sparking an interest in delving into deeper theories like Lacan's psychology. The narrative's unique structure drew me in, immersing me in the characters' inner lives. I was completely engrossed and look forward to revisiting this thought-provoking story. The upcoming release of "Scaffolding" fills me with anticipation, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have experienced it early as an ARC.

I would call this a gripping contemporary that develes into womanhood and its darkest aspects. I have so many annotations highlight the books is now rainbow.

This was a good book. I really love the world building and the characters. The pacing was really good and it was an interesting story to read