What It's Like in Words

A Novel

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Pub Date Dec 03 2024 | Archive Date Jan 03 2025
Henry Holt & Company | Henry Holt and Co.

Description

Eliza Moss's intoxicating debut novel is a dark, intense, and compelling account of what happens when a young woman falls in love with the wrong kind of man.

Enola is approaching 30 and everything feels like a lot. The boxes aren’t ticked and she feels adrift in a way she thought she would have beaten by now. She wants to be a writer but can't finish a first draft; she romanticizes her childhood but won’t speak to her mother; she has never been in a serious relationship but yearns to be one half of a couple that DIYs together at the weekends.

Enter: enigmatic writer. Enola falls in love and starts to dream about their perfect future: the wedding, the publishing deals, the house in Stoke Newington. But the reality is far from perfect. He’s distant. But she’s a Cool Girl, she doesn’t need to hear from him every day. He hangs out with his ex. But she's a Cool Girl, she’s not insecure. Is she? He has dark moods. But he’s a creative, that’s part of his ‘process’. Her best friend begs her to end it, but Enola can’t. She's a Cool Girl.

She might feel like she’s going crazy at times, but she wants him. She needs him. She would die without him...That's what love is, isn’t it? Over the next twenty-four hours (and two years), everything that Enola thinks she knows is about to unravel, and she has to think again about how she sees love, family, and friendship and—most importantly—herself.

With notes of Fleabag & I May Destroy You but with the sparseness and emotional accuracy of writers like Ali Smith and Lily King, What It's Like in Words is a close examination of what it means to experience the intense emotional uncertainty of first love.

Eliza Moss's intoxicating debut novel is a dark, intense, and compelling account of what happens when a young woman falls in love with the wrong kind of man.

Enola is approaching 30 and everything...


Advance Praise

"Eliza Moss masterfully renders how it feels to be ruled by grief and toxic obsession, and what it takes to break out of a prison of your own making. Devastating and tender, What It’s Like in Words is a love letter to friendship, art-making, and the messiest parts of ourselves."—Ruth Madievsky, national bestselling author of All-Night Pharmacy

"With echoes of Sally Rooney and Lily King, Eliza Moss is a fresh new voice who exquisitely captures the quirks of what it means to be imperfectly human and beautifully fragile. This book reads like poetry."—Neely Tubati Alexander, author of Love Buzz and In a Not-So-Perfect World

"I devoured What It's Like in Words with breathless admiration for Eliza Moss's raw, propulsive story of toxic love and obsession... The writing—gorgeous, crystalline, tender... If you enjoyed Genevieve Wheeler's Adelaide, Carola Lovering's Tell Me Lies, and the work of writers Dolly Alderton and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, you'll tear through this dark and addictive debut about a woman learning, finally, to value herself."—Caitlin Barasch, author of A Novel Obsession

"Eliza Moss masterfully renders how it feels to be ruled by grief and toxic obsession, and what it takes to break out of a prison of your own making. Devastating and tender, What It’s Like in Words...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781250355058
PRICE $28.99 (USD)
PAGES 304

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Average rating from 125 members


Featured Reviews

Such a poignant and honest story about those toxic situationships you find yourself tangled in when you're still young, but not quite as young as you used to be. Characters were well-drawn --- the romantic interest is appropriately priggish. While Enola's decisions were sometimes frustrating, they were also relatable. I loved the way Moss wove her back story throughout the book, and the depiction of her slow unraveling felt believable. Recalled Genevieve Wheeler's Adelaide, but a bit less whimsical.

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