What It’s Like in Words

Moss’s astute debut chronicles a London woman’s toxic relationship with an older man. Enola, 27, is a struggling writer working as a barista with her best friend, Ruth. She’s still processing her father’s death when she was a young girl and her decision to cut off communication with her mother. She meets the “mega-confident” B at a pub, where he props his feet up on the table next to her glass of wine. From then on, “the desire to please him bloomed like an addiction,” and he manipulates her with subtle insults and criticisms of her writing. Four months into the relationship and despite Ruth’s concerns, Enola takes a trip with B to Kenya, where she spent part of her childhood and where her father died. As memories of her dad resurface, Enola’s grief becomes too much for B and he breaks up with her, but it’s far from the end of their story. Over the next year and a half, Enola is constantly drawn back to B. Eventually, she must decide if she will move on from him and her troubled familial past or stay under his sway. While the novel’s structure is needlessly confusing, hopscotching across different periods of the relationship, Moss keenly portrays how Enola’s sense of self-worth becomes tied to B’s perception of her. It’s an arresting portrait of manipulation. (Dec.)