This is the kind of book I want to talk about with anyone who will read it. Parts made me wildly uncomfortable, and parts made me laugh and parts made me nod my head in understanding and isn't that the point? You have to read all the graphic parts to get to the really good bits about her mid life awakening. Thoroughly enjoyed.

The narrator of July's insightful and unusual All Fours is a semi-famous woman in her mid-forties. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Harris, and her child, Sam. Harris is a bit conventional, while the narrator is anything but. On the way to New York City for a solo vacation, she stops at a hotel in Monrovia and becomes infatuated with a younger (and married) Hertz employee named Davey. His wife, an interior designer, decorates her motel room and then the narrator spends three weeks with Davey, going on walks, dancing, and blurring physical lines without fully crossing them. After three weeks in Monrovia, July returns to her family and takes steps to live more authentically by opening her marriage.

This is one of those novels that you really have to read for yourself! While it is possible to give a plot synopsis (see above), July's writing really shines through her ability to describe all the wild inner thoughts that humans possess. I would expect women in the 40+ bracket to find this book especially fascinating. While the plot elements are unusual and wacky and at times gross, July's ability to narrate the thoughts of a woman nearing menopause is astounding. This is not a typical novel with a straightforward plot, but I would recommend it to readers who enjoy books with unexpected female characters, such as those by Ottessa Moshfegh. Weird, funny, vulnerable, and surprising!

"It's hard to be knocked down when you're on all fours."

In what seems to be a semi-autobiographical novel, July relates the story of an artist who plans to travel cross country by car, but ends her journey in a town half an hour away from her husband and child, where she becomes obsessed with a local man. At times hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking, I suspect this will be a love-it-or-hate-it title, depending on whether or not you like the narrator, or approve of her choices. This was definitely the best WTF novel I've read in a while, and I was definitely never bored.

AND she had me online shopping for anything Tonka bean.

A woman in her mid 40s heads off on a 3 week cross country trip, but ends up staying less than an hour from home for the entire time. During that stay, she spends all her trip money redecorating a motel room and having an affair of sorts which makes her long for more in her life. When she returns home, she must deal with these feelings in the context of her marriage, her friendships, and the onset of peri-menopause. Delving deep into her feelings and exploring her sexuality as she creates a new type of family, this book really feels like it could be based on the author's life, or at least with issues she is experiencing. It feels raw and honest and full of exuberance and fear. This honest exploration of a woman in middle age may not appeal to younger readers, but I'm recommending it to many of my friends already. Note to readers: the book does include discussion of suicide and many of the sexual encounters are somewhat graphic.

Miranda July is not everyone's cup of tea, but she is mine. I adored All Fours. It's just as weird as you would think if you've read any of July's previous works, but this is her second novel and I LOVED it!

This is one of the weirdest, most memorable novels I've read in a while. Somehow this is my first experience with Miranda July and I'll definitely be coming back for more. Did I enjoy it? Yes-ish, though I'm not sure "enjoy" is the word I'd choose - it's too placid. So here are some better questions: Did it make me squirm? Absolutely - I haven't reacted so viscerally to literature since the scene with the brains in Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Did it make me laugh? Yes, out loud, multiple times. Did the storyline strike me as utterly absurd or completely believable? The answer is 100% both. Has it stuck with me in the weeks since I've finished it? Undeniably.

What a remarkable, skillfully crafted book. Looking forward to stocking it at the bookstore - it won't be for everyone, but it will adamantly be for some. Thanks to NetGalley and Riverhead Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't relate to the characters. The writing is great and wryly funny, but the storyline is far removed from my reality.

In All Fours we follow a middle aged woman as she embarks on a cross country road trip to rediscover herself….except she only makes it 27 minutes down the road, spends $20,000 renovating a hotel room and gets entangled in an affair with a younger man- a situation which spirals.

Miranda July has fast become one of my favourite authors and her ability to mix the absurd with reality and make situations so incredibly weird while also making her characters vulnerable and relatable is like none other.

I really enjoyed reading from the perspective of a middle aged, menopausal woman- something I feel like we don’t explore enough in fiction- and the themes of sexual liberation, rediscovery of the self, experimentation, aging, motherhood, expectations and not always having your shit together.

Like I mentioned above, I feel like there’s a whole wave of books exploring coming of age or navigating life in your 20’s but anything past that is kind of forgotten about or overlooked and life doesn’t stop in your 20s so this was super refreshing!

July truly is the patron saint of weird women characters and this one did not disappoint!!

Thank you NetGalley and Riverhead Books for the early access to All Fours, in exchange for a truthful review.

All Fours is a fast and funny read, albeit one that’ll occasionally stop you in your tracks with something bruising, brave, or beautiful (sometimes all three at once). Reading it felt like spending time with a friend, and I was moved by the final sentence.

July’s said her work is fiction, not biography – and she probably has to make that especially clear for All Fours, which has the brutal honesty of truth.

Wonderfully written, combining a serious message with a laugh on every other page (so many great one-liners!), this is a special book I’m sure I’ll return to.

Unhinged, unreliable, unsettling, and unputdownable. I'm not sure if I liked it, but I also can't stop thinking about it.

All Fours
by Miranda July
Pub Date: May 14, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC 0f this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey.
I loved this book! All Fours is bawdy, funny, and deliciously weird. It’s a tender look at the terror of growing older and feeling that you’re no longer as desirable as you once were. And then the surprise and beauty that comes with realizing that you are constantly changing, beginning again, and writing your own story.
4 stars

I just could not get into this book. It is something I don't normally read and that could play into it. I probably would not purchase this book for the library

I requested and received an early digital galley of this novel through NetGalley, because the plot description intrigued me. Early on, I mused, “What have I gotten myself into!” I did ease into the road trip motif and by suspending belief I could enjoy some of the quirky romance bits. However, this is a book for those comfortable with a lot of sexuality in the storytelling. This portrait of a unique woman’s emotional and physical exploits at midlife might please those readers.

This was sexy and weird and I had a great time. I watched "Me and You and Everyone We Know" right before I started the book, so it was great to have July's voice stuck in my brain. I'd recommend this to anyone who is sexy and weird and looking for a great time.

This book is everything. I absolutely loved it, and I highly recommend it for all collections. It's a new all time favorite. It's like an artistic feminist manifesto that is very inspiring, funny, sexy, raw, and real. I've been a fan of Miranda July's for a long time and this book does not disappoint. Thank you, Miranda, for writing this! This story will definitely stay with me for many, many, moons to come.

My experience with All Fours was up and down. Part one was beautiful and had me in tears. Unfortunately, I didn't feel as connected to the middle, but enjoyed the end. My first rating was 3, but I'm moving it up to 4 because I know parts of it will stay with me; Miranda July does a great job of capturing a certain middle-aged experience.

This work feels very personal to July and I am glad that she shared this experience with us.

Funny, absurd, obscene, and observant. I loved the writing style and the narrator’s internal dialogue as I followed along on cringey misadventures. That said, at some point i started to feel exasperated with her life decisions (although I guess also that’s kind of the point!) thankful to have read an early copy from NetGalley!

Oh dear. I’ve enjoyed July’s work in the past but this time the spark didn’t catch. Trivial, whimsical, indulgent, this new novel just seemed to irritate rather than entrance. Yes, I’ve read other reviews extolling its virtues but for me there was something too gratingly cute about the voice and the preoccupations. Sorry, but no thanks.

At the beginning of All Fours, Miranda July describes two kinds of people.

“In life there are Parkers and there are Drivers,” July writes, “Drivers are able to maintain awareness and engagement even when life is boring…they get joy from petting a dog or hanging out with their kid and that’s enough… Parkers, on the other hand… need a discrete task that seems impossible, something that takes every bit of focus and for which they might receive applause.”

The panic of being a Parker is what sets July’s protagonist on a cross country road trip; it is also exactly that set of characteristics that lead her to forgo the journey and stay at a motel 30 miles away from her house. It’s an absurd premise, one that gets a few laughs from my friends as I describe to them the plot of the book. But, July’s novel is a smart reversal of the road novel. It is witty and earnest and finds freedom, ironically, in staying put.

“I didn’t think a lot about death, but I was getting ready to,” July’s protagonist thinks while driving. “I understood that death was coming and that all my current preoccupations were kind of naïve; I still operated as if I could win somehow. Not the vast and total winning I had hoped for in the previous decades, but a last chance to get it together before winter came, my final season”

As I followed the secluded vacation of the main character, a sort of abject horror overcame me. This is revolting, I thought. Would this be my life? The page I was reading looked like this:


July calls this “the cliff.” The sharp drop of women’s estrogen and libido in between forty-five and fifty.

July’s protagonist is haunted by the image of her grandmother, who “jumped out of the window of her New York City apartment building when she was fifty-five. No warning except she had recently been lamenting all her gray hairs.”

While reading I couldn’t help but feel lightheaded – not at July’s writing, which is evocative and physical and reminiscent of Sheila Heti – but rather at the plummeting feeling of doom that women feel when they realize the culmination of their life is some awful disease that no one cares much about.

The novel began as July’s intent to reframe the aging narrative. “I interviewed many, many gynecologists. I interviewed naturopaths. I interviewed older women about their experience of this time,” she said in a conversation with Elif Batuman. Though little of the research went into the actual book, July was interested in “the idea that there might actually be something kind of hot in [menopause]”

People often write stories that imagine the conception of womanhood; rarely do we write about its fall. July’s novel feels like the mirror of a coming of age novel – a wild and exciting sexual fantasy, a rupture in the self, a heightened awareness of the plight of every other woman. Despite never leaving the greater Los Angeles area, July’s protagonist emerges from her motel chrysalis a changed woman.

July has been criticized for being “strenuously quirky,” which feels like an ill-informed attempt to belittle her characters into a series of personality traits. It is true that often I wondered why any of the other characters put up with the deliriously bad decisions of the protagonist. But to read All Fours like that would be to neglect the contradictions of the female psyche, the holistic care with which July builds her characters.

Where July shines is her endearment to the strange intimacies of women and womanhood. “I’m forever wanting to know what it feels like to be other people. What were we all doing? What the hell was going on here on Earth?” her protagonist asks. After every decision she makes, a call is placed to a different woman in the character’s life – her best friend, her mother, her older friend who is “obsessed with hot flashes.”

At the end, the July’s protagonist makes a group text with every woman above forty that she knows, and asks them about menopause. The women feel like some sort of chorus, as their texts clog up the page. “My chronic migraines stopped completely after menopause…I feel like my true self… What other people do, think, or say has become kind of irrelevant since I stopped bleeding.”

For July, the cliff is a peak – to stand at its brink is the beginning of a great adventure. And the fall may be the most thrilling part of the ride. In the same way, July’s vast universe – her delightful and obscure characters, twists of a completely unpredictable narrative, and incisive wit – can’t help but pull a reader in. Slowly, All Fours becomes a book that you cannot live without finishing.

This book was provided as a NetGalley from Riverhead.

Typical Miranda July, by which I mean spectacular. All Fours is bawdy, funny, and deliciously weird. It’s a tender look at the terror of growing older and feeling that you’re no longer as desirable as you once were. And then the surprise and beauty that comes with realizing that you are constantly changing, beginning again, and writing your own story..