hardcover, 240 pages
Published Sept. 7, 2021 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.
Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young—but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?
I personally did not enjoy this book; it just did not resonate with me. The characters lack depth and it's just backwards and forwards with no real plot. I bought the book because the story takes place in Dublin, where I studied and have fond memories.
