What Its Like in Words, Eliza Moss
What Its Like in Words, Eliza Moss
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What It's Like in Words
A Novel

Author: Eliza Moss

Narrator: Victoria Blunt

Unabridged: 10 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/03/2024


Synopsis

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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.

About Eliza Moss

Eliza Moss is the pseudonym for Sarah Moss, a London-based actor, and singer. She double majored at the University of Manchester, gaining a first class degree in English literature, and studied method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York. In 2021 she completed the Curtis Brown Creative three-month novel-writing course. What It’s Like in Words is her first novel.


Reviews

Goodreads review by emma on February 20, 2025

this book made me so anxious i couldn't sleep until i'd finished it. tbd on if that's good or bad. (review to come / thanks to the publisher for the copy) ------------------------- tbr review the phrase "everything feels like a lot" in the synopsis is all i needed to want to read this......more

Goodreads review by Meg Anderson ♡ on April 04, 2024

What It’s Like In Words has unexpectedly become a top read of 2024 for me. Eliza Moss has written a debut novel that was, well let me just tell you… What reading this book was like in words: heartbreaking, eye opening, triggering, important, emotional, heavy, inspiring, beautiful, gripping, incredibl......more

Goodreads review by Kristy on November 18, 2024

This was a TOUGH read. If you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship of any kind, it will probably be triggering because of how spot on it is. She got the nuances of gaslighting, manipulation and the deterioration it will cause on the victims mental health to a T. At times I couldn’t stand Enola bef......more

Goodreads review by Celine on November 18, 2024

I need like a year to recover from this.......more

Goodreads review by Catherine on November 18, 2024

When 28 year-old Enola meets him at her writers group, she's immediately infatuated with the unnamed 35 year-old man sitting across from her. What starts as intrigue becomes a full fledged relationship, if you could even call it that. Not only is he emotionally distant at times, but her wins to him......more


Quotes

"What It’s Like in Words is a consuming portrait of a young woman building and rebuilding herself from the wreckage of her past lives. 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. Enola, our painfully vulnerable heroine, inspired and infuriated me in equal measure as she repeatedly took two steps forward and one step back. I wanted to shake her but also give her a hug, as she reminded me of so many women who struggle to confront terrible truths about people they've chosen to love. The writing—gorgeous, crystalline, tender—is ultimately an ode to the rejuvenating friendship between Enola and her best friend Ruth. 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

"It’s an arresting portrait of manipulation."
—Publishers Weekly

"What It’s Like in Words fills the void left when Phoebe Waller Bridge said 'no' to Fleabag Season 3 ... Enola discovers the power in rewriting the narrative of her own life, of evolving from a passive character to an agent in relationships who can revoke consent when she wants to. What It’s Like in Words is the story of the self–the whole self, the uncurated self–overpowering the fear of being left behind."
F(r)iction

"Dynamic debut ... A searing novel about why we love people who are bad for us."
Kirkus