What’s the difference between loneliness and being alone?
Release Date: August 4, 2020
Publisher: Text Publishing
Price: $11.95 (paperback)
Plot Summary:
Lona has dropped out of art school and no one is quite sure why, least of all Lona. It’s just that nothing in her life seems to make sense anymore, including art. She spends her days sneaking into the darkroom at her old school to develop photographs and her nights DJ-ing at the local roller disco.
Her aimlessness terrifies her, but everyone else appears oblivious to her fears: her parents are bewildered by her sudden lack of ambition, her brother is preoccupied with his new girlfriend, and her best friend Tab seems to be drifting away. Even a budding relationship with a bass-playing, cello-shredding med student isn’t enough to shake her existential angst.
Lona knows it’s up to her to figure out what she wants to do with her life: the problem is, she has absolutely no idea where to start.
Grade: A-
Review:
Despite not being written in the first person POV, the short chapters and short sentences in Loner read how one would imagine its protagonist Lona thinks. The book begins with Lona having left uni because she feels like she doesn’t have to be in art school to be an artist. Throughout the book, she’s pretty aimless, but it captures the feelings that many people at her age (early twenties) feel. I liked how the book explored the sense of liking to be alone with the feeling of loneliness. Lona enjoys her own company best, and that of her best friend Tab. But like most introverts (especially the not so sociable kind) she struggles with being herself but also compromising with being who people wish she were for social interactions. Although I’m not as introverted as Lona is in the book, there are moments that were relatable to me, especially when she has to prep herself to be excited about an outing and how exhausting an afternoon out with strangers can feel whilst trying to pretend that you’re having fun cause that is more socially acceptable than showing fits of malaise in public. The novel explores friends, art, and love.
Not a lot happens in the novel but if you’re into literary novels that put existential crisis under a microscope then you may enjoy this one.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Text Publishing for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
The Inkblotters 