This just didn’t coalesce for me. I think the book is very confused and underwhelming. I would have preferred had it stayed a stream-of-consciousness take, but then it veered into a different story between THE SEDUCER and THE SCHOLAR that I found uninteresting. Disappointed

Practice is a book that takes place over the course of one day. It's centered on the thoughts of Annabel, a student at Oxford, as she prepares to write an essay on Shakespeare's sonnets.

I wouldn't have expected to enjoy reading about the minutiae of one's regular day as much as I did, but it was surprisingly comforting and fascinating. This isn't the type of book with page-turning action sequences. Instead, you get a front row seat into a young scholar's imagination, fears, and introspections.

I really enjoyed this book and kind of wish I knew what happened to her the following day and beyond. For anyone who loves a unique, character-driven novel, this would be an excellent choice.

From the description I wasn’t sure if I would love this, but then it was like eating a mug of hot chocolate with a spoon. So pleasing. Beautifully earnest. The descriptions of yoga and needing to pee… revelatory. I was highlighting all over the place.

Annabel is a student at Oxford trying to write a paper about Shakespeare's sonnets.

PRACTICE is very much in the vein, structurally, of novels like 'The Guest Lecture' and 'The Novelist'—tightly inside the mind of one character, listening in while they work through their creative and intellectual process. I was interested to learn that Rosalind Brown's academic work focused on the "the concept of discipline, particularly self-discipline, and...cultural fascination with the forms of self-discipline practised by writers." I liked how thinky it was—even when blown off course of her routine, the thoughts of this very particular and almost acetic 19-year-old stayed rarefied and surprising. I liked the attention to the exigencies of hydration, and how even the sticklers and hardos have messy romantic entanglements and longings.

Spiritually and stylistically, I think it's very contemporarily British: PRACTICE reminded me a lot of the work of Sarah Moss and Claire-Louise Bennett. (I'm wondering how this is going to play in the US.) One of my favorite parts of PRACTICE was how the main character, even when she's focused on writing a paper, can't help but add details and scenarios to the lives of two characters she's made up in her head, called only 'Scholar' and 'Seducer,' who are living much more dramatic lives in an imaginary Oxford parallel to hers. Fun!

Rosalind Brown’s debut novel is getting some glowing and gushing pre-publication buzz, and I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from the publisher. As someone who has spent much of the past 20 years in and around academia, I was drawn to the premise: it sounded like a slightly different kind of campus novel. Brown is undoubtedly a gifted writer, but ultimately I think the premise was a little thin to maintain an entire novel.

Let’s get one thing out of the way, just so it’s clear: Brown is a very good writer, and there are plenty of excellent passages sprinkled throughout Practice — moments of wry humour, great observation and/or description. The characters who enter Annabel’s day are very well drawn, and one of them almost gave me whiplash, she was so like someone I know (in terms of cadence, style, etc. — it was uncanny).

As someone who has experienced a great many days at college, struggling to get to grips with an assignment, I found Brown’s protagonist’s experiences relatable and often amusing. The author does a very good job of writing the sense of frustration when a concept or direction feel aggravatingly just out of reach, constantly slipping out of your grasp. Or getting derailed, as the unrelated thoughts of a young mind bubble up and intrude — it can be so hard to focus on work, when you’re hungry, horny, and tired.

"She is underwritten by this: this catacomb of her own bleak, confusing desires."

At the same time, the novel’s momentum dropped precipitously when I was about a third of the way in. It becomes clear why a single day in the life of a university English major is not a common/popular premise for a full-length novel. Similarly, if nothing really happens, the inner thoughts of a college student (brilliant or otherwise) aren’t as riveting as they might believe. (Perhaps this book is an attempt to illustrate the quiet narcissism of people in their early 20s.) The novel also features some modern literary fiction tropes: confusing affair with an older man? Check! Blunt and “shocking” language about body parts and sex? Check! It’s either a bit bland (affair); or it’s just not as affecting as it’s maybe supposed to be (use of the word “c*nt”, for example).

In some ways, this novel is more an interesting writing exercise than it is an interesting novel. Brown does a very good job of making Annabel a somewhat engaging character, and if you’ve lived a day anything like the protagonist’s — whether at university, or remote working, or just struggling to focus on a deadline while the rest of your life intrudes — then you’ll likely find plenty of moments that you can related to and sympathize with. There are also a fair number of amusing and clever turns of phrase. It’s just, at the end of (Annabel’s) day, I didn’t feel especially satisfied by the read.

A cautious recommendation, then, if you’re looking a something short and tightly-focused in scale, if not particularly gripping in terms of plot. Despite this not really landing for me, I am nevertheless interested to read whatever Brown writes next.

I think this book was good. I requested it because it sounded interesting, and it was. The cast of characters was interesting and all so different from one another.