What It's Like In Words by Eliza Moss: ARC review
Overview: Enola is a writer, though she hasn't turned in work to her writing group in a year. She works at a cafe with her best friend, Ruth, who is always going on interviews for short-lived new jobs. When Enola meets "him" at one of the writing meetings, there's an undeniable chemistry, and Ruth feels magnetically pulled in. Though the relationship is clearly toxic from early on, Enola's complicated family past and struggles with self-esteem keep her coming back. The novel traces Enola's journey as a writer, as a person, and as a friend over around a two year period. Overall: 4
Characters: 4 Enola is that quintessential sad girl "unlikable" heroine that you'll know well if you read these types of books. She struggles with self-esteem and unresolved questions from her past. She feels abandoned by her mother and unstable in her life. She falls for the wrong people, has a tendency to push away those that are trying to help her, and is determined to see the world through the narrow lens she decided on long ago. Enola, of course, is not without sympathetic qualities as she struggles to parse her own existence. She's just trying to figure it all out.
Ruth, Enola's best friend, is the backbone of the story. She's lost in her own way and paints an interesting contrast to Enola. Enola finds Ruth effortless when it comes to fashion and social skills. They are also opposites when it comes to career, though they work at the same coffee shop. Enola has always known she's going to be a writer, it's just a matter of when. Ruth grew up with artist parents but doesn't have that impulse herself. She's still casting around for her passion.
Not to spoil anything, but one of the most interesting parts of the novel is how both men Enola dates over the course of the book are wrong for her in entirely different ways. It's more of a subplot, but one of these relationships takes on the trope of the "nice guy" and the way they're always cast in such a sympathetic light. Moss reveals how this approach can be just as toxic as the infamous "bad boy" type.
Plot: 4 This book meanders forward and backwards with the linear unfolding of Enola's relationship with the unnamed man as they go on and off, sometimes interrupted by flashes from the present moment. These can be somewhat disorienting and aren't super well-delineated. You start to adapt and figure out more easily how the story bits weave into each other with time. We track Enola facing her past, her writing career, her friendship, and these romantic relationships as she learns a sense of worth. The ending gets a little strange as Moss tries to pull on the idea that's repeated through the book that rests on the multiverse theory and all the different possibilities that come from choice. She's also, I think, trying to make a play on the idea of Enola being a writer who is even revising in her own memory. This is semi-successful.
Writing: 4 There are some really great lines in this novel. I read it with a highlighter in hand and ended up pulling plenty of pieces from the text. It's a good read, and the pacing is fast. I finished it in two days. While there are parts that certainly could've been tighter, I enjoyed Moss's writing and the story overall. It's hard to bring something fresh to exploring a classically toxic relationship, but I was thoroughly intrigued by the shape Enola's particular story takes.
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