Whoa. What can I say about this book? It felt like a true window into queer experiences. It felt like joy and pain, finding out and embracing exactly who you are and also finding out who you are and completely denying it. It felt like love and loss. It felt like fear and safety. It was a lot. It was written super beautifully. There was poetry in parts which I feel unequipped to describe or critique because I can’t quite wrap my mind around poetry. This is the book I’ve highlighted most in recent memory. It followed two perspectives of queer women deciding how to move through a world not built for them. They choose almost completely opposite strategies despite the fact that their stories nearly intersect any number of times. The chapters alternate between their two vastly differently and hauntingly similar experiences throughout the book. There are times where the author throws the similarities in seemingly opposite experiences in the reader’s face by literally including the same phrases and sometimes completely paragraphs in subsequent chapters. It was so good. The cover is lovely, the title is beautiful and the story is lovely, beautiful and haunting. If you want to immerse yourself in a beautifully told pair of queer narratives then you should certainly pick this up. Here are the endless quotes I highlighted:

“And I liked how it felt, being turned inside out, learning that the self becomes whole in the moment it is opened.”

“As if she is breaking apart in the same moment that she is becoming whole, both coming undone and being built through the violence of metamorphosis—the process of taking shape.”

“Thomas speaks the way feathers fall. In that roundabout way where the words drift and ebb and are slow to land.”

“I feel as if my lungs are on fire, like I might, in a moment, smell the reed of my muscle burning.”

“And so, I am left, feverishly remembering, until her face is a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory, like ink in water, dispersing, and I’m not sure if we ever locked eyes at all.”

“And I feel the throb of this moment. Because, against the impossibility of it all, joy persists.”

“It’s raining outside, now, small footprints of sky on the windowpane.”

“Swallow and feed the memory pushed back under. Sunk down. As her face resettles on the ocean floor of my body, I feel the strangle of disgust loosen. Breath out. A twisted sigh. Heart slowing. Relief.”

“Language falls short. Because she falls. Slowly, she falls, falling through air spiraling down through all the years lived, back to the very beginning, into the darkness from which she was birthed and into which she ends, her skull cracked open on concrete.”

“Adrenaline fades into blood and the container of my grief disintegrates.”

“Her death is like a bird slamming into a window. The sudden shock that the sky has limits. That my motherhood was a trick of light.”

“Her death is like a birth slamming into a window. The sudden shock that the sky has limits. That our liberation was a trick of light.”

“I don’t imagine how this will affect me, how it will crush me, to see her coffin overwhelmed by bodies that got to grow fully.”

“You didn’t look particularly striking, and yet, I was entirely struck, the way lightning turns sand to glass.”

“Because you came over me like a wave. And I dove through the belly of the ocean, where I have been, ever since. With you, I could exist underwater. And in the beginning, I panicked. Because everything we’ve ever been told, tells us we cannot breathe underwater. I wanted to stay, but I thought, I need air, I need air. This isn’t how we are supposed to live, they say. But by both luck and necessity, my body changed. My lungs became gills. I had learnt to exist otherwise, and to live entirely in it.”

“Now I will keep you alive by love, loving you ceaselessly. In every movement of every murmuration.”

“Let the water carry what you can’t.”

“I learn how loneliness is felt most acutely in the presence of another person when the intimacy is gone.”

“I’m no longer resenting my flesh for what it couldn’t become.”

“Her breath was the anchor that settled me.”

Thank you, NetGalley and Publisher, for this ARC!

3.75 This novel was devastatingly beautiful. As someone who hasn't read many stories that take place in Australia and not one that takes place around the AIDS crisis, I didn't know what to expect. The book was beautifully written and tugged at my heartstrings throughout. However, this is not with critique. This novel had two perspectives and timelines, and as someone who didn't know this before starting, the fact that the two perspectives are so similar and difficult to tell apart. I only noticed this when I began observing significant inconsistencies in the plot due to merging both timelines. I discovered this after the 20% mark, if not further into the novel. While Hardcastle writes incredibly poetically, and his novel feels immersive, the book could be improved if the two timelines were more distinct. Overall, though, I highly recommend this book and the cover is absolutely stunning.

This book felt like your favorite song that makes you feel sad, but brings so much joy as you finish singing it. It’s lyrical, beautiful, heart-felt and just honestly really good. I don’t want to give anything away, but the queer love in this story is gorgeous and you don’t want to look away from the story. Easily 10 stars out of 5!

This book was lovely. A lyric meditation on queer love in the 70s and 80s, focusing on two young women (limb one and limb two) as they go on their individual and sometimes intersecting journeys of discovery and identity.

I see what other people have said about it being overwritten--the lyric impulses of the text are front and center, and if lyricism is anathema to you, this might not be your book. But I really enjoyed floating on the dreamy language and encountering the interior lives of limb one and limb two as they journey through their lives. The intense interiority of these two women sucked me in as a literary device.

The ending felt a bit rushed, I suppose, but for a novel about journeys of inner discovery, the plottiness of the end bit matters less than the arrival of both characters to self-acceptance and knowing. I cried during multiple parts of the last third of the book. It spoke to me deeply, and I'm glad it exists in the world.

This was like a punch in the gut, but in a healing way. It's rare to see a similar story of my own queerness on the pages of a novel. i had to read it in small amounts because it was all too real, all too relatable.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately it didn’t resonate as deeply with me as I hoped. The premise of two similar characters who follow diverging life paths was interesting, but I felt like I couldn’t connect with either. The book is relatively short, and if you consider each “limb” a separate story, it really consists of two novellas. I saw some other reviewers mention that it wasn’t initially clear there were two separate characters, and I shared this confusion (I thought the author was portraying the same character in alternative timelines). The poetry that was incorporated into the book didn’t speak to me, but poetry is highly subjective, and clearly many other readers appreciated it.

The sudden, fateful romances between Caragh and one of the protagonists (and a later relationship toward the end of the novel) didn’t speak to me. I would have liked to see more development of their relationships, rather than immediately jumping to passionate love and sex after merely glimpsing each other in the street. Again, though, I can see how this type of romance could appeal to some audiences.

I appreciated the portrayal of queer life in the 70s and 80s, and I thought the peripheral characters of the Uranian House were touching. I hope more publishers take on queer and trans authors writing queer and trans stories in the future.

This book was a DNF for me. I am so greatful for the arc and I think the writing in this book is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately this book came to me at the wrong point in my life. Just because it is not for me right now doesn’t mean it’s not a good book, I can recognize talent when I see it and this book is really so well written. It is lyrical and smooth and makes you feel so much for the characters. I think maybe in a couple years time this book might be a favorite of mine, I just need todo some maturing first.

This book sounded like the songs Piano Man and Pink Pony Club. I felt a sense of longing and nostalgia for a time and place I’ve never experienced. When I tell you these characters felt so real and so believable, phew! There was an emotional connection to nearly all characters introduced that made *every single one* memorable.

I’d argue this is near perfection. I’ve struggled to write this review because of how speechless A Language of Limbs has left me. I need a movie, a series, more books from the author PLEASE.

5/5I

This was a very interesting book, defiantly a tear jerker and a sense of being scene. it was surely a story to be told, not everyone will appreciate it but it was defiantly needed to put out in the universe to tell the story. I was very emotional when they told a story so devastating, but still have resolved.

this was quite a confronting and really emotional read, partially because i know little of how australia handled the AIDS crisis and partially because every time I turn to queer history i’m struck but how much has been lost, and how much we are only now recovering. that said, i wish the narrators’ voices were more distinct from one another.

This is a novel about love and being who you are. While Australian author Dylin Hardcastle identifies as transmasculine, the novel is about lesbian love. The nonbinary struggle does not really surface. But we get some wonderful history through the lenses of personal/fictional stories.

We follow two women characters who survive— two limbs. Traversing the 70s and 80s in time, the story even takes us through the tragedy of AIDS/HIV. Gay and lesbian bashing, a heterosexual relationship, writing and publishing as queer, some great lesbian sex, and questions about the very word queer are all thrown into this very readable and enjoyable novel. The two stories converge in the end but I won't say how. It is beautifula nd poetic. I am glad I read it.

The Language of Limbs is a tour de force, a book I’d recommend to anyone curious about the struggles queer people have had over the past few decades and to any of us ready to remember and in the end feel the pain and the pride.

A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle | 5 Stars

Some books make you feel seen. Some reach inside you and won’t let go. “A Language of Limbs” does both—and then some.

Reading A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle is like peeling back layers of longing, love, and loss. It’s one of those rare stories that’s so beautifully written and deeply moving that, once it’s over, you’ll wish you could erase it from memory just to experience it all over again for the first time. Hardcastle doesn’t just tell a story; they build an entire universe of human connection and choice that lingers long after the final page.

The Story
Set in 1970s Newcastle and Sydney, Australia, A Language of Limbs follows two parallel lives of a teenage girl standing at a life-changing crossroads. In one version (Limb One), she runs after a kiss with her neighbor leads to rejection and exile from her family. Her escape brings her to Uranian House, a queer communal home where she discovers family and community, building a life defined by freedom and authenticity. In the alternate timeline (Limb Two), she stays the course, suppresses her desire, and heads to university, following a more “acceptable” path.

In each life, we see the same young woman struggling, growing, and searching for herself. The two versions of her life almost brush against each other, intersecting in moments of heartbreak, love, and, ultimately, a shared battle against the AIDS crisis. Through bars and protests, classrooms and hospital rooms, Hardcastle gives us a tender epic that celebrates chosen family, self-discovery, and the quiet, fierce joy that lives in the shadows of pain.

Why It’s So Powerful
This is a story about the paths we take—and the ones we don’t. The alternating “Limbs” aren’t just clever structuring; they’re emotional explorations of identity and resilience that lay bare what it means to choose love, community, and courage, even when the world doesn’t make room for you. Hardcastle’s writing is raw, poetic, and utterly honest. Each character, each moment, is crafted with such care that you feel it deeply.

Final Take
Hardcastle has given us a masterpiece that’s equal parts love letter and lament, a story about the weight of choices and the power of love and community. If you’re ready to laugh, cry, and hold on tight, A Language of Limbs will take you there. It’s a book that deserves every one of its five stars—and then some.

This is one you’ll want to keep on your shelf, reread, and treasure for years to come.

Gorgeous, heartbreaking, crying-on-the-subway worthy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to what this author will be writing next.

Ambition. That’s what best defines A Language of Limbs.

Propulsive prose, characters you could cut yourself on their edges they feel so real, a beautiful narrative structure that runs at a breakneck pace—absolutely refusing to handhold the reader or be bogged down by needless exposition—these traits all define Dylin Hardcastle’s novel. But the one I keep coming back to, again and again, that singular word: Ambition.

Hardcastle tackles a range of subjects here—colonization, police brutality, AIDS; and the disturbing concept, the irrevocable fact, of shared minority histories being turned inside and out by archivists deemed polished and acceptable enough by a largely compliant, heteronormative, and white societal sect.

But there’s always hope. These histories will always be reclaimed. Small gestures or big ones, they all lead to a singular avalanche—eventually. And the truth will be laid bare.

There’s a confidence, a controlled rage, but A Language of Limbs brims with hope too. Hope, fragile and persevering, held up by Hardcastle’s characters. Characters who could easily give into cynicism and defeat. They don’t. And that’s the whole point. That’s how these histories are reclaimed. By those who actually lived them, those they loved, and those following after. Who, maybe—without these shared communal stories—would feel isolated and other.

Hope—transgressive, glorious. But, most importantly, needed.

(Thank you to Penguin Random House/Dutton for the arc, allowing me a chance to read this novel before its release.)

5 Stars ⭐️

I didn’t know what to expect, only that it would be painful, and god was it.

This is one of the best dual narratives I’ve read in a long time, and both are soul rending in equal measure. I know shamefully little about how the AIDS crisis hit Australia, and part of me is still shocked that the author hadn’t lived it themself for how personal each story rings.

This was INCREDIBLY written. Beautiful, lyrical, tender, and painful all in one. This is exactly the kind of book I wish high school me could've had a chance to read. I loved the double narration and the characters voices were so unique, but also so similar to one another. Two giant thumbs up!

I wanted to love this more than I actually did. I think the author pulled off describing gay yearning and angst (especially in adolescence) very well, but there was an undercurrent of forced emotion throughout that was kind of distracting for me. The pacing felt off and the ending was certainly rushed in an odd way, kind of clunkily getting us to the conclusion.
Much of the writing is beautiful and lyrical and I really appreciated a lot of the prose. The author clearly has a lot of love for these characters and wants to do the queer movement and history of this time justice. I think they are successful in accomplishing that most of the time, and I would read more works by them.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for providing this arc for me to review.

This book was beautifully written. The double story about different ways that people experience coming out or struggling with their sexual identity was remarkable. The characters were deep and we were allowed to understand them deeply. This book is a must-read for anyone struggling with their identity. This healed the teenage me who felt like I didn’t belong.

what a precious, beautiful book.

this book read like an ode to the queer histories that have been both lost and intentionally erased.

this book was about queer community, how family is found amongst people similarly rejected people, both by parents who beat their kids until they leave the only homes they've ever known because they walked in on them kissing the wrong person or the guy with that disease that's been going around. you know the one, that gay disease.

we're treated to two perspectives in this story - the perspective of a girl who, when discovered to be queer, is run out of her home and has no other choice but to accept her identity as a queer person and live out her life, despite the perils of the time period. she's picked up off the side of the road by someone who recognizes what she is and why she's all alone and is brought to meet her new family, a group of queer people who share the experience of being hated by an unaccepting world.

the next perspective is from the girl she was caught kissing. and she, she decides to accept a life that is considered "normal" by marrying a nice man that her parents worried she'd never find, by planning to start a nice, nuclear family.

this book was beautiful, but it was also really painful. in fact, if i had a singular criticism of this book is that it's primarily focused on the tragedies of living queer lives and not enough on the joys of embracing identity.

also: spoiler warning - though true, the ending to this book is devastating. you're not going to find a tidy resolution, you're not going to find a happily ever after here.

This was a beautifully written novel, especially the last sentences of many of the chapters. This book was also very sad at times but uplifting as well. I enjoyed reading this a lot. I liked the style of having two alternating narrators who were very similar yet very different.