Chrysalis

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It’s trying really hard to be a book that makes you think but in the course it doesn’t actually say anything at all. Our unnamed girl does just that, leaving her friends, lovers and family none the wiser and cast adrift. How one grows and evolves over the years, becoming comfortable in their own skin and finding their way in this strange world.

A masterclass in character, Chrysalis is an unsettling and brilliant portrait - not just of a woman in transformation or of those who fall into her orbit, but also of a world defined simultaneously by our isolation and by our longing to connect. It is about controlling the body and the mind, about the place of the individual within society and what it means when someone chooses to leave society behind. She was like a rare painting, some subtle work of genius, a thing that no one knew to look at until the expert told them it was there. It’s during the pre- and post-work rushes that you see the sprained ankles and pulled knees, locked shoulders, muscle spasms. All three of the perspectives were intriguing, I love when incongruencies are casually revealed via a co-narrator.This is a sharply-wrought, surprisingly tender book about how our internal changes create external change. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit.

explores the dark side of influencer culture and probes questions of solitude, perception and self-invention. A stance that offers up a vision of an organic self that clearly appeals to the growing band of followers drawn to her online presence. We see through the eyes of three different characters but the authorial perspective is always there. One for all the contemporary fiction lovers, Chrysalis is the story of an unnamed woman, whose actions blur the lines between self care and narcissism.Her journey is narrated from the perspectives of three different people in her life, never her own, so we, the reader, are as intrigued as they are by her singular drive to transform. Like the best of literary fiction, in my view, this novel is mostly about interiority, is compelling and beautifully written, I will be thinking about the issues it raises long after I have closed the cover. Postmodern speed and complexity are juxtaposed with slowness and simplicity, so ideas that are valued by the mindfulness movement, but which, at least in this story, aren't the solution either. It takes controlling the body and mind to a whole new level and the transformation of one woman, as well as her influence on others throughout her journey. I was so struck by the strange loneliness of being in our own heads--this journey to selfhood as a complete internalization, without much interest in a relational existence, except inasmuch as it fosters that transformation.