brilliantly written, wonderful story, everything is well thought out and the characters have great dimension
motherhood is such a fine line of a thing to discuss especially in the way this book has but it did SO well. sisterhood is also a kind of tricky, icky, sticky situation to write about and once again this author did so beautifully. i will be looking for more items published by this author.

This took me a while to pick up but i read it super fast. It’s about Kit, a young woman dealing with new motherhood and the loss of her sister and everyone’s problems falling to her. Loved gilda’s voice (her daughter) Loved kit. I started this on the train home from Ilana Glazer’s show and on the tail end of The Mother of All Things which are about adjusting to new motherhood and the constant labor that it seems only you’re able to perform but it was not repetitive at all and very well written and understandable. The one thing and this is just unlucky is I feel I’ve read sooooo many books with mothers who are hoarders and I feel like it’s becoming a big plot device but didn’t take away.

Love this Am so excited for what’s next from Kimberly King Parsons.

Thank you to Knopf and Netgalley for the Arc!!

This one didn't totally work for me, unfortunately! The premise sounded so interesting, and Parsons is clearly such a talented writer. I also tend to love "sad girl litfic" about messy, sometimes unlikable characters, so this seemed like it'd be perfect for me on paper, but I'm not sure why, I just couldn't fully get into the story. However, I would still recommend WE WERE THE UNIVERSE to fans of the types of books I mentioned—I definitely think it will resonate with a lot of readers! Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC.

This one just didn't land for me, but I hope that others find something to love in it. THanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read it early.

What a phenomenal story. I am impressed with how steady and measured Parsons is with her words while sinking us into Kit's world of motherhood and grief. A story with a lot of heart that lands in the perfect spot. I had to go back and re-read the last chapter once I realized what it was doing, and it was perfect. Parsons understands grief and sisterhood and it shines throughout.

Loved the motherhood aspect of this book - also liked how you kind of knew her age but didn't really. Wasn't a total favorite of mine unfortunately but had some good aspects

I tend to finish books if I started them, but I have tried to read this over several months. Getting to the halfway mark was truly a challenge, and I cannot finish this.

It has an interesting premise. I was looking forward to how grief would be navigated and how the story would play out.

Honestly, having an unlikeable protagonist is not a problem, but I would hope the narration to be interesting. However, this was so dull.

I simply cannot believe this was a debut novel! Parsons writing was brilliant and the narrators voice was eloquent. The feelings this book triggered for me were organic and natural

This book is really good at expressing anger, resentment, bitterness... The prose is sharp, lovely, compelling, and the story covers interesting ground, with a self-destructive mother grieving the loss of her sister while raising her toddler and figuring out how to be happy with her vegan husband. Sometimes the book was so good at what it´s doing, it felt hard for me to read--I worried about little Gilda, how she might experience her mother´s disinterest, but that´s just the book being the book. I feel like parents especially will find the voice and story relatable and valuable, as it´s brave and unafraid of making readers uncomfortable or taken aback.

I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting from this book, but it wasn't quite that. It wasn't a "queer friends on vacation" story the synopsis suggested it may be. There are queer friends on vacation at a certain point, but to me it's much more about Kit's internal experiences and reckoning with her past and grief than any present experience she may have.

Kit is messy and honest and raw and real. She is struggling, has been struggling, and often resists the supports in her life. She is an unreliable narrator with a self-awareness that makes you want to shake her and hug her and maybe do some drugs with her, depending on the day. I like her. I think we'd be friends.

I'm not exactly sure why I liked this book as much as I did, maybe I just really appreciate how at times painfully and hilariously honest it is, but I am glad I read it and I look forward to Parsons's future work.

I'm blown away by King Parsons writing. I related to so much in this novel, despite not having much in common with the main character. Will probably be one of my favorites of the year.

I don’t know, I just didn’t connect with this one as much as I thought I would. It seems right up my alley on paper, but I wasn’t crazy about the main character Kit and I felt the story was a bit disjointed and depressing (for me, at least!) I definitely see this working for a lot of people, especially within the vein of sad, weird girl lit fic.

I did feel for Kit, juggling raising an adorable but precocious 3 year old, grieving the loss of her sister 3 years earlier, and dealing with a hoarder Mom. But I felt the plot was weak and it was sometimes a slog to get through. I think I’m in the way minority though, according to Goodreads! Might have just been the wrong book for me at the wrong time.

We Were the Universe is a darkly humorous story of grief and motherhood with sharp writing and characters that will stick with you. There were some truly memorable scenes, and I found the parts about motherhood and domestic life to be the most compelling. My one qualm is that the first quarter felt like reading an entirely different book and then it shifted in a way that felt a bit disjointed for me.

I went into this book blind, and the timing ended up being perfect, as I am going to be giving birth sometime in the next week. I loved this take on motherhood- it felt serendipitous yet raw, and it felt like reading something with the metaphorical skin removed so you can see all the weird, raw material that sits underneath the narrative. Weird analogy, but that’s pregnancy brain for ya.

As someone who is about to experience motherhood and has also experienced the loss of a family member, I really loved how the themes of motherhood and grief intertwined in the best and worst ways and at the best and worst of times. Both are unpredictable, and both can make us lash out and do things we never would expect ourselves to do. It was soothing in a way, to be seen like that. I especially liked the passage about how recreational drug use prepares you for labor, a strangely comforting read.

Overall a very powerful story with the struggle of a woman trying to be seen as the perfect mother while trying to stay in touch with her own chaotic self in the process. Very touching and very visceral.

In Kimberly King Parson's debut novel, "We Are the Universe," we're drawn into Kit's world as she grapples with the aftermath of her sister's tragic death while juggling the challenges of motherhood. With a sharp sense of humor, Kit navigates through the mundane routines of parenting alongside her daughter Gilda, all while confronting the shadows of her troubled past. While this book fits snugly into my beloved "weird contemporary" genre, I felt it lacked depth in its depiction of motherhood and I wished for a bit deeper exploration of Kit's grief.

Kimberly King Parsons is an exquisite writer, and it’s a novel that, while it explores tried and true themes of new motherhood and loss, does so in an entirely new way. The book is the epitome of the concept of grief being non-linear; new memories keep popping up, scattered throughout the novel, and they slowly reveal a picture that is as messy as it is heartbreaking. I found some parts of it to be disjointed and hard to focus on due to the fact that the story kept going in new, vaguely aimless directions. But her writing was very moving and the last chapter shift in perspective was effective in making me deeply emotional. It is the kind of closure everyone wishes they had from a lost loved one--knowing they were okay, trusted their fate.

I loved the concept and liked the sentence-level writing of We Were the Universe, but I found the pace to be frustratingly slow (and I'm someone who loves character-driven, fairly plotless novels, so my tolerance for slowness is quite high!). On the one hand, I appreciate how the novel's form reflects the nature of grief, especially grief without closure; on the other, I think readability and engagement took a hit. Structurally, I'd compare it to Sheila Heti's Motherhood, which was also heavy on interiority and repetition (given the narrator's singular preoccupation), but I found Motherhood to be much more absorbing and immersive. I also felt the blurb for this book was a bit off - I wouldn't describe it as "laugh-out-loud funny," though I did at times find it delightfully strange in a less straightforwardly ha-ha way.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for an advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

A classic, run of the mill literary fiction. I wish I felt this did more for me, but the motherhood element did make it harder for me to get onboard her poor decision making. I think this could be a cathartic read for new queer mothers, but for me, I just found myself uncomfortable as the mother neared masturbation while watching her kid do gymnastics. I’ll write an IndieNext review if you’d like to submit it, but this one was not my vibe.

Perfect for mothers who have been waiting for their turn at sad girl literature, this is an exploration in the psyche of a stifled queer mom dealing with the aftermath of her sister’s death and her lost freedoms.

I loved the individual sentence structure of the writing. However, the pacing was must too slow and I found the first 6 chapters just did not hook me. Which is really when I’d give up. But since I got an arc for this I pushed through. It was just okay to me! The contrast of the MC’s experience with motherhood and her troubled past was interesting but it got old really fast. Just going through her day to day life was boring.

Wow, this was a really raw, intense and brilliant meditation on grief, coping mechanisms, and we process emotional pain in various ways—physically, mentally, spiritually. I am processing the loss of both of my parents and my doggo best friend this past year so writing on grief really hits me personally atm. While I am an only child, I can only imagine that anyone with sisters specifically will have an even deeper experience reading this and understanding the MC Kit after she loses her sister. She is funny, and sometimes frustrating, but in a way that made her all the more human and made me want to root for her. Thanks to Knopf & NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.