MISRECOGNITION

A depressed young woman attempts to form her identity through parasocial relationships, one of which she manifests into existence.

Elsa has been dumped by a chic older couple, her bosses and lovers of a year and a half. Heartbroken and out of a job, she moves back in with her parents in her sleepy hometown. The family watches an unnamed film together, which the discerning reader will quickly identify as Call Me by Your Name (2018), and Elsa finds that “she had been moved,” deeply, by the performance of the young actor—which would be, you guessed it, Timothée Chalamet. Elsa becomes obsessed with Chalamet, who’s referred to only as “the actor-character,” and in an extraordinary coincidence, she sees him at her town’s local coffee shop days later. He’s starring in a play in the town’s annual theater festival, and Elsa devotes herself to meek attempts at grabbing his attention from outside his retinue of haute creatives and hangers-on. Her life becomes a blur of hostessing at the local restaurant, stalking “the man and the woman” and various influencers on social media, smoking on the roof outside her childhood bedroom, and—briefly and unspectacularly—encountering the actor. Over time, her interests shift from the actor to one of his companions: a dark-haired person named Sam. When Sam finally notices her, Elsa must reckon with who she is, and who she could become, after hitting rock bottom. This debut is realistic in its portrayal of a listless young woman lacking direction, and some readers will find many moments to relate to. The endless repetition of actions and thought patterns that fill the first two-thirds of the book mirror the monotony of Elsa’s days, but they quickly begin to drag. We move through Elsa’s life as she does, sleepily, watching her emotions instead of feeling them. The style is formal and detached, which can feel stilted at times, but there are lines that shine with wisdom: “She wondered if progress or ‘healing’…was merely a flattening out, a ridding of affect so that one might remain placid in the face of almost anything, a pebble worn down to its impenetrable core.”

Another slightly edgy “sad girl” novel, distinct in its inclusion of a nonbinary love interest and a celebrity cameo.