Olivia Gatwood's Whoever You Are, Honey is a captivating debut that delves into the intricacies of identity and the allure of perfection in a tech-dominated world. The juxtaposition of Mitty and Bethel's dilapidated existence against the polished lives of their neighbors is both poignant and striking. Gatwood skillfully explores the complexities of female friendship and the darker undercurrents of obsession. While the prose is often lyrical and evocative, the narrative occasionally feels uneven, with certain plot points lacking depth.

Olivia Gatwood has created a captivating world in "Whoever You Are, Honey." Blending literary fiction with thriller elements, it takes readers on a journey into the experience of being a woman, delving into themes of memory, connection, loneliness, and the pursuit of perfection.

An unexpectedly slow burn of a debut novel that sits somewhere at the crossroads of literary fiction and science fiction. Themes of sexual identity, envy, and shame around the various aspects of womanhood drive the underbelly of the plot and characters we get to know so well, and it is, at it's core, more of a character study than a plot-fueled mystery. However, there's the feeling something eerie and looming just out of view as you turn the pages. On one hand loneliness is essential to understanding this story, and on the other, the nature of feminine camaraderie and experience.

I think if my expectations had been set to a place where I understood this to be much more literary fiction than anything else, it would have been a breeze to get through, but as it is, I did find myself at various points wondering, "Where is this going? And when are we getting there?" In the end, there was delivery, don't get me wrong. That being said, I look forward to seeing what else Gatwood has to give us in the form of novels in the future.

The Author’s writing is beautiful and lyrical. There is a strange mystery and characters are mysterious too. Narrated in present and past timelines. It revolves around the lives of Mitty, Lena, Sebastian and Bethel. Set in Santa Cruz. Mitty and Bethel are housemates. While Sebastian and Lena are the newly arrived neighbours. Mitty and Lena’s bond is strange. They feel drawn to each other. The book is about friendship, Enviousness, technology, unsettling past and unexpected reality. The ending was unpredictable.

Thanks to Publisher and Author.

Whoever You Are Honey
By Olivia Gatwood

A short, but densely packed novel set in a Santa Cruz area beach which is almost completely gentrified bar one holdout property.

Mitty and Bethel are unusual housemates. Not related, a 50 year age gap, but they have a steady, predicable lifestyle in their shabby home. Next door, the new neighbours live an exposed life of beauty and privilege in their glass mansion. Mitty can't keep her eyes off Sebastian and Lena, and when they become acquainted Mitty and Lena are drawn to each other for different and compelling reasons.

Through alternate perspectives this stylishly written story examines a multitude of themes that come to bear on the development of the female psyche, friendship, empathy, envy, guilt, embarrassment, body consciousness, the male gaze, power dynamics, patriarchal attitudes to the female "role", femininity in it's various forms, the power of female wisdom.

There appears to be a debate about how this book has been marketed as Sci-fi. It has a nod to The Stepford Wives, and another recently published book which I think is a spoiler to mention, but there's enough ambiguity about that in the novel. You can chose your own ending regarding that, but because the themes are so strikingly similar, they are surely in conversation with each other.

I found this book to be easy to get into, I loved the setting, but it was one of those reads that I spent a lot of time trying to imagine where it was going. It finds it's way, beautifully, but I imagine opinion will be divided about the resolution, as some of the best books are.

This is an author I will read again. She writes from the heart.

Publication date: 11th July 2024
Thanks to #NetGalley and #randomhouseuk for the eGalley

Mitty and Bethel have been living together for ten years. They are generations apart in age and occupy a dilapidated beach house in Santa Cruz. The house next door is renovated into a giant glass box and in move new neighbours, Lena and Sebastian.

We get the perspectives of both Mitty and Lena here. Mitty is running from something in her past, an event that seems too sore to even think about. She feels as though she's been hiding out with Bethel ever since and the two have a comfortable, if a little reclusive life together. Lena is running towards her own past. There are things she wants to find out, foggy memories that she can't seem to touch. One thing she is sure of is how much she loves her tech bro boyfriend, Sebastian.

Mitty and Lena pretty quickly develop a friendship and start spending a lot of time together. This encourages them both to start thinking about their pasts and start being a little more honest with themselves.

This is a little bit of an exploration of AI and technology but if you're here for a really in depth look at that I think you'll be disappointed. It is really focussed on interpersonal relationships; Mitty and Bethel, Mitty and Lena, Lena and Sebastian. Personally I prefer that over whatever AI has going on which is why I really enjoyed this book. The characters are compelling in a way that makes you want to find out what they're hiding.

Worth noting that the author is a poet so this is very beautifully written! And I think it would be a great holiday read.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

I am really sorry but this was just not for me. I ended up DNF'ing at around 30% as I just could not get into the story at all.

I just want to start this off by saying I’m a huge fan of Olivia Gatwood’s poetry writing and have been since I stumbled upon her YouTube performances of ‘Alternate Universe in Which I Am Unfazed by the Men Who Do Not Love Me’ and ‘Ode to the Women on Long Island’.

That being said, this book was really missing something for me.
It revolves around two characters mainly: Mitty, who is in her late twenties and living with an old friend of her mother’s, Bethel, in Santa Cruz after fleeing her hometown a decade ago, and Lena, who has just moved in to the same area with her husband, Sebastian. Lena and Mitty are drawn to each other immediately.

Mitty’s story focuses on the past she’s trying to escape from and the effect that it’s had on how she navigates life and relationships. Lena’s focuses on how she feels trapped in a world directed by her husband, with nothing of her own.

It explores friendship, memories, loneliness, and AI, and the writing was very lyrical and very raw, drawing on Gatwood’s exceptional poetic talents.
Unfortunately, the plot was so slow that by the time Mitty’s past was revealed, I’d kinda lost interest in it. Lena’s story was so obvious I’d worked it out by about 25% in and it just became incredibly repetitive, with a very anticlimactic end that left too many stones unturned. I really was expecting more from the second half of the novel.

I'm afraid this just didn't work for me - there's an interesting concept about sentient AI and women's lives but I never got absorbed by either the characters or the story. There have been a few 'modern Stepford Wives' books and I appreciated that this didn't go down the thriller route, taking an emotional look at female psyches and their relationship to a past and a sense of self. But perhaps this went so low-key that it never summoned up sufficient interest for me, and that combined with the slow pace deadened my enthusiasm.