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.

There are no words that I can possibly provide that could even come close to how profoundly moving this novel is. This book left me a sobbing mess and I had to take several breaks to gather myself before continuing.

It’s a story about love in its deepest form, grief of the most unimaginable, and how the people we choose to be in our lives impact everything in the end.

Honestly, this book was an experience that I feel everyone needs to read to understand just how beautiful words can be. It’s such an important work of literature that I don’t think will ever leave me. Dylin Hardcastle’s ability to paint such a beautiful portrait of the human soul is so visceral and honest. Truly unmatched.

Please read this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Publishing Group for giving me the e-ARC of this lyrical masterpiece before its release date in May 2025 (US).

This book was absolutely gorgeous from start to finish. The prose flowed perfectly and, while I found the lack of quotation marks (or any discernible difference to identify dialogue) confusing several times throughout the book, it wasn’t a significant enough problem to make the book itself difficult to follow or understand.

A Language of Limbs takes place, in large part, during the 1980s, with one of the two main characters being an openly queer woman, so it’s not surprising that I sobbed several times while reading this. But while a huge part of that was because of the AIDS epidemic, there were also other heartbreaking parts.

The writing is beautiful and contemplative even as it covers a wide range of deep traumas of societal rejection. But the structure felt a little odd. Wasn't sure for the longest time if the two POVs were the same person or of two people that know each other, and ultimately I'm not sure it all came together for me. However, it painted a very vivid picture of the world and the people living and loving in a specific time and place and it was very viscerally rendered.

This was beautiful. And though the form was confusing for the first few chapters, once I fell into the rhythm, I was under the author’s spell and I loved every second I was immersed in this story.

This book resonated with me on every level. I loved the writing style and the way the story unfolded through the perspectives of two different narrators.

There were so many moments when I was completely captivated by the prose. Dylin has a gift for words that creates vivid imagery on the page. The characters' emotions are expressed so powerfully that it truly tugs at your heartstrings. Reading it felt like an exhilarating emotional rollercoaster, picking up speed with each page.

Exploring one's queer identity is a challenging journey, and I can’t even begin to imagine how much more difficult it was during a pandemic.

I loved this book.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this novel.

A raw poignant poem filled with love, lust, grieve, loss, pain and renewal. A language of limbs is a novel written like poetry, split open and broken apart showing the real and raw feelings and emotions that come with queerness.

Achingly beautiful. I was *that person* weeping on an airplane, highlighting every line. "Because a love that never could be, is now the love that never was." Oh, Dylin, what a masterpiece you’ve created.


My thanks to Dylin Hardcastle, Dutton & Penguin Group for the ARC.

this book is truthfully the easiest 5 star read i have ever read. this book feels like life, love, hopes, dreams.... so much more. Im in awe of authors talent and love Dylin Hardcastle really did some amazing things with this book. You are allowed to push boundaries and exist in a way that is truly authentic to yourself regardless of what others may say. In my opinion Dylin did just that in this book.

"Because a love that never could be, is now the love that never was."

This was the easiest rating and completion of a book I have had in a few months. I don’t think I could possibly do it justice by trying to write out the excellence of this book. The writing was so poetically written, the way every word touches you in the soul and truly breaks you, just to piece you back together. This story is of two different women’s perspectives, the choices they make and the way those choices change the course of their lives. Though their stories are different to the core- the pain and trauma they share is so eerily similar in many ways.

i rarely know how to properly start writing reviews, but most especially now as i start writing this one. maybe it's a good way to start with feelings, so i'm going to begin with what i was feeling throughout my reading of this novel: first i was in awe, then i was in shambles. and then, both.

let's start with the first feeling: i knew from the get-go this was an ambitious novel (in a good way!)
the characters' names weren't explicitly revealed until we get to the very end, and their initial experiences were quite similar, but the way they dealt with their experiences immediately distinguished them from each other. their namelessness didn't matter at all, because you wouldn't be able to mistake one character for another.

also awed by the narration style here: it interweaves elements of poetry into its prose, in a way that enriches the scenes rather than cloud over them like other purple prose styles usually do. i also loved how in dream sequences, the punctuations were employed to draw to what was happening: using em-dashes rather than periods to punctuate each detail in a scene, spilling into run-on (punctuation-less!!) sentences, and then breaking the entire thing off with a swift and sudden em-dash to bring us back to the waking world. and when we go back to the waking world, the character does something so unbelievably contrary to what they'd felt in the dream sequence and it's so !!! jarring

this novel didn't only focus on the two characters--all the other side characters felt so incredibly real to me. i'm not talking only about geoff and caragh (although these two are quite possibly my faves out of all the side characters) i'm also talking about han, who so very clearly expressed her (righteous!) irritation against another character's micro-aggression against her (the classic "but where are you FROM" question). han has asian features because her parents are from vietnam, but she's literally born and raised in marrickville in sydney, aus. han also pointed out that thomas (another character whose parents are immigrants) has an accent, but the insensitive character didn't ask him where he was from, cos he's white lol

speaking of other side characters whose personalities were brought to the fore so well, i'd be remiss if i didn't mention the wonderful found family in the Uranian House: big dave, marg, geoff, daphne, ruby, johnny, caragh, etc. <spoiler>they felt so vibrant and alive and real that losing half of them felt all the more painful</spoiler>

now that i've mentioned that part, let's dive deep into what brought me into shambles (while still being in awe)--i already knew from the get-go that part of this story was set in the 80s during the AIDS pandemic + the height of when people don't feel shame about their queerphobia, but reading about the characters' lives taken away both by the disease and by people's cruelty induced so much secondhand rage and grief in me.

i quite literally said <i>all cops are bad</i> out loud while reading this. outside of fiction, it was true then, and even truer nowadays. i loved that the author weaved this truth into the overall narrative, too.

i'd also like to touch on the bit about how we are given this incredible moment of meeting caragh for the very first time: it's a well-drawn out moment that spans pages (in my ebook-reader at least) and then later <spoiler>this moment is recalled in such a vivid manner, when we are grieving caragh's death. it's a beautiful, gut-wrenching parallel. </spoiler>

so many moments towards the end made me want to scream in earnest also. that's how it solidified its place in my 'favorites' shelf.

thank you so much to NetGalley and Picador Australia for e-access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

Such a great book, I may not be the intended audience for the book but it was still a solid read.. I do appreciate the carefulness the author took in portraying love and difficult decision making. I do like the fact it is a period book, but not sure if limb 1 and limb 2 were needed or justified. Other than that it is well written, I do believe there is promise for the book, but again.... I may not be the type of reader this author writes for.