What a beautiful piece of prose! Loved the plot, atmosphere, characters, the unexpected, surrealist turns.

I didn’t necessarily dislike this book, but I found it wasn’t cohesive enough for me. It felt like two different books meshed together.

The first half felt quite grounded in realism, even dystopian at times - but then it suddenly veered off into magical realism and fairy tales where there are magic keys, magic shoes, talking animals and a rushed mission impossible style breakout scene.

There were some really cool ideas in here (I liked the lake with the fish) but I’m the characters were not well developed, and the plot tried to achieve too much imo.

Evie lives in New York, doing her “not a job” job and plodding through an uneventful life. Her general disengagement means that she is one of the many thousands, if not millions, affected when the mayor decrees mandatory evictions for all who rent their homes and premises. Some few saw the signs and made plans for this day, but the majority find themselves out on the street with their belongings.

With potential sanctuary from a rumoured distant relative in far away Texas, Evie - cultivating new bold habits for a new bold life - has to take her life seriously for a change, making plans to recover all her property from storage, rescue her sister from a draconian ‘care’ facility, and assure their futures.

This was a pleasure to read. I’ve seen it described as surreal but, while there’s undeniably a rich fairytale quality to it, I found it to be more hyperreal - taking the minutiae of socio-political conventions and exaggerating them beyond satire until they buckle like reflections in a fun house mirror but retain their definition. After a flying start the book seemed on the brink of that most hateful of things, wackiness (helicopters, dogs) but it tottered back, didn’t fall, and soon resumed and maintained until the end its warm, clever, and deadpan grasp of the situation.

I know comparisons can be odious, but what we’re getting here is that precise atomisation that filmmakers like Wes Anderson/Coen Brothers/Miranda July bring to cinema - amplifying specifics and minutiae, creating a believable distortion of reality which stops short of grotesquery and which delivers, in its wit and perspicacity, impactful emotional jabs.

Kivel has a lot of fun with her prose, it’s airy, warm and funny, and the characters each have their own distinct voice, which is more rare than you might think in a busy book like this. Evie is a thoroughly engaging protagonist - more resilient, capable, and daring than she ever let herself believe - and her growth is as rewarding for us as it becomes for her.

A real treat of a book.

My thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for this book which I requested.

A miraculous work of literature…an embodiment of every oddball’s reality in this modern world. I feel a kinship with Evie, with Bertie, with Noah, with Andrew, with every longing and yearning character illustrated in this book.

I found multiple passages worthy of being shared far and wide…which doesn’t really happen when I read books. I read many.

This read is going to be a big one that rings true for many lovers of magical realism, critics of today’s economic failings, worries hesitant about tomorrow’s uncertain future, storytellers looking for the next modern (not so short) fable. But also to the hopeful hearts, who never close their minds to the possibilities of dreaming.

Thank you #NetGalley for this ARC. I am in awe.

This book definitely wasn’t what I expected!

Living in New York, Evie is evicted into the street amidst a housing crisis with nowhere to go. Her sister was admitted to a mental institution some years prior and they lost their parents, so technically she’s an orphan.

Evie takes a punt and heads out to find her second cousin living in Texas. The only affordable place she finds to rent out there is a shoe shaped building (yes a shoe).

Here’s where the book takes a turn…

She has supernatural powers for making shoes and she joins a secret shoemakers group. She quits her job and makes a plan to rescue her sister. There’s more mystical, fairy tale inspired plots along the way, as she heads into the forest to find and finally rescue her sister.

A whimsical ode to capitalism maybe?

Huge thanks to NetGalley & Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the digital copy to review.

I think if I had known to expect a fairy tale retelling against the backdrop of the housing crisis, I would not necessarily have been disappointed.

Evie, a graphic designer and an orphan whose sister is in a cult-like mental institution, is evicted from her apartment in New York City amid the housing crisis. For over half the novel it strikes an absolutely near-future or dystopian tone with no speculative elements or folk tale hints. Evie, who can work remotely, finds her only other relative, a second cousin in Gullick, Texas, who's a realtor. She throws herself at her feet for a rescue. Renters have also been shut out of the market in this very weird small town with lots of secrets.

Out of options, Evie finds herself living in a shoe, where she keeps getting approached by people requesting cobbling services. From here it is just a Mother Goose retelling. She is forced out of her job and decides to learn shoemaking, which she has a supernatural talent for. She then joins a secret order of shoemakers who turn out to be immortal. It's there that the book lost me.

The tone of the last half of the book was then so whimsical that it felt at odds with the tone of the first half. I am kind of over fairy tale retellings so maybe people who love them will find lots to appreciate here.

I thought this was going to be houseless orphan moves to a fairy tale inspired town and meets a whimsical found family where she finds belonging, but it went from dark and bleak to cozy and fantastical so often that I found it disorienting. The whimsical tone at the end almost downplayed the central message of the housing crisis theme in a way I found off-putting.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I'm sure there were countless intertexts that escaped me, as I'm not much of a fairy tale or folk tale reader (though I did want to be an ethnologist when I was growing up). Nevertheless, the main question that bothered me as I read the book was what kind of (literary) form is appropriate to describe and respond to the disaster/catastrophe/apocalypse that is late capitalism. Kivel says it's the folktale, and perhaps she's right in that it's a popular form. People against capitalism? Sure, but how exactly?

A charming, bizarre, and lovely story of one woman looking for a home. Evie has been evicted from her apartment in NYC. By chance, she remembers a distant relative lives in Texas so she goes there in hopes of a place to stay.

This was a strange and fun read. Evie is compelling and easy to root for and I adored her relationship with Bertie and her newfound shoemaking skills. I am excited to read whatever the author writes next.

Thank you very much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. This is a wonderful adult fairy tale that never moves completely out of our world. It starts when the mayor, in order to clean up NYC, evicts everyone who is renting an apartment. The city is in chaos, with people sitting hopeless in the street on their furniture. This leaves Evie homeless. She remembers a very distant relative in a small town in Texas and sets out to see if she’ll take her in. And the delights keep coming, including moving into a small house that’s in the shape of a shoe and then training to become a shoemaker and then joining a shoemaking fraternity, where she may be the chosen one that they’ve been waiting for for almost a hundred years. Not to mention having to try and free her sister from an asylum, with help from her new boyfriend who can make any key, as long as he knows the door’s history. Such a fun first novel.

This was a journey and a “fun” (in a black comedy sort of way) social commentary of the current world and the socioeconomic divides, I’d say. Main character, Evie, is a renter in the city and is evicted where only the 1% can still afford to live because they own their properties. She must find a home elsewhere and leaves for Texas.

I enjoyed the commentary bit. Very gallows humor which I enjoyed.

Evie is expelled from her New York City apartment when a new mayor forces renters out, and driven mostly by chance, ends up in Gulluck, Texas, living in a building shaped like a shoe. She will discover strange creatures, a secret association, distant relations, and semi-magical occurrences on the path to rebuilding a family and finding her purpose.

DWELLING is off-kilter: zany things exist and occur, which initially charmed and eventually bloated and dragged. I found the book too committed to realism to be generatively weird. I was interested in a book (even a satire/fairytale) set in north Texas, but the setting (as with other elements) felt arbitrary. To me, it felt like the book basically contains all of whimsical features in the blurb, but doesn't quite knit them together in a satisfying way.

For those who enjoy the genre of contemporary fabulism, like Hilary Leichter, Helen Oyeyemi, and Ling Ma, this is a pretty good addition about the housing crisis!

i loved this book so much! it is a wildly imaginative story set in a world that’s literally falling apart. Evie, left alone after losing her family and everything else, escapes a crumbling New York City to a strange Texas town called Gulluck. there amidst albino cicadas, quirky townsfolk, and even a giant fish, she begins a surreal search for belonging and meaning. the story feels like a mashup of fairy tale weirdness and sharp social commentary. it tackles big themes like the housing crisis and personal loss but does it with humor and a magical, offbeat vibe. the setting was so bizarre yet oddly relatable, and Evie’s journey is packed with existential questions and unexpected moments of hope.

If you’re into stories that blend real-world struggles with a dose of the absurd, Dwelling is worth checking out. it's fresh, funny, and hits hard in all the right ways. ❤️✨

thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux for my copy!

I recently finished an interesting fantasy book. Dwelling by Emily Hunt Kivel was not what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised.