I really loved "A Language of Limbs" by Dylin Hardcastle. Tender and poignant at times. Loved the innovative limb 1 and limb 2 structure. Great character development. Recommended.

It will be many moons before I’m able to articulate my feelings for this love story. From the first page until the last, I was completely immersed in the narrative, lost within the pages, and pondering it at work. I am in utter awe of Dylin Hardcastle‘s prose and vivid storytelling.

I highly recommend A Language of Limbs, it is a visceral and poignant experience that you will feel in your core.

This life-affirming story will be a top read of 2025 for me!

Stunning. I cried my eyes out during the last chapter. I had such a specific interpretation of the concept of the book that the ending worked like a twist and it absolutely floored me. The entire book I was thinking about the choices you make and the roads those choices lead you down and how they change you, but how sometimes you stay the same and wind up in the same place, and you can’t protect yourself from grief or loss or pain, but you’ve also never gone so far you can’t find joy again, and to know all that but then also find out someone else was experiencing that same grief and joy and is almost like your mirror through the years of your life you thought you were alone or didn’t know if you could love again? God. I’m so fucking emotional. I love this book. We’re all going to be okay!

I was hooked from the beginning!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.

I haven’t read a book this powerfully heartbreaking in a while. It’s a quick story, but it’s written with so much depth and meaning that you feel what the characters are feeling.

This story follows a woman living two parallel lives. In one, she embraces her identity as a lesbian; in the other, she suppresses those feelings and remains in a heterosexual relationship. Her emotional experiences in both lives are explored, with moments where the two realities intersect. The narrative delves into themes surrounding sexuality, identity, and personal struggle, and also touches on sensitive topics that may be triggering for some readers.

*I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this opportunity*

A LANGUAGE OF LIMBS is a lyrical love story to the queer and indigenous peoples of 1970s and 80s Australia. It is weighed down with symbolism and sentimentality, the chapters often more poetry than prose, but within those verses is a story about two queer women trying to find their path.

I, like some others it seems, didn't realize it was two different narrators, the voices are incredibly similar-- but I enjoyed the book as a parallel lives story, and was pleasantly surprised by the ending. I think read either way, this is a powerful story of what-ifs and the teeming possibility of decision; the intersectionality of all our lives and the unknown impact we have on the people within our circle.

This is an absolutely gorgeously written tale about two queer Australian women who handle their sexuality in different ways. I was impressed by the depth of the storytelling, and I liked how the POVs were split by limbs.

So much packed into 289 pages, this book delivers an honest, unflinching look at both the good and the bad. It's raw, real, and beautifully told from start to finish. This book is for everyone.

Wow, what a book to kick off Pride Month with!

This is such a beautiful read—so poetic, so lyrical. It’s sad and tragic while also being joyful and hopeful. I wanted to read it slowly to savor the language, but I also wanted to devour it, letting the short chapters form a sort of montage in my mind, picking up the pace the closer these two characters got to finding each other.

I loved how the main characters’ lives paralleled each other in so many ways while still remaining distinct. I enjoyed the repetition of certain phrases for both characters, which highlighted the similarities in their needs and desires. It was incredibly well done and made their naming as “limb one” and “limb two” throughout the majority of the story feel that much more fitting. I was so eager for their paths to cross that it was hard for me to put this book down once I started reading. I absolutely loved that we got their names at the very end—I hoped the author was saving that for the perfect moment, and they did. It made such an impact.

Beyond the stories of the two main characters, I also really loved the diverse array of side characters. You can truly feel the love the author has for these communities in how they handled these characters and their stories with such care.

I had tears in my eyes consistently for the last 100 pages or so. This is one of those books that left me feeling quiet and still once I finished.

I’m genuinely in awe of the writing and artistry that went into creating this story; it feels like so much more than a novel. I cannot recommend this enough—it’s an absolute must-read.

This is the first book in a long time that left me in tears by the final pages. A Language of Limbs is poetic and an amazing story about queer identity, grief, love, and the many shapes a community can take.

I loved the undercurrent of suspense—those near-misses and almost-encounters between little Dave and Suzanne kept me invested. I wasn’t sure if or how their paths would intersect again, and that anticipation made the story feel both intimate and expansive.

That said, the alternating POVs labeled only as “limbs one” and “limbs two” did get a little confusing. I often had to remind myself whose perspective I was in, and I found myself wishing the characters' names had been used more clearly to anchor me in their worlds. Still, that didn’t take away from the emotional impact or the lyrical beauty of the writing

This book wasn't for me. And honestly this is on me because I knew it wasn't my vibe!

I have zero appreciation for poetry and this book starts out with poetry and features poetry pretty prominently. I think a lot of people will enjoy the writing style, but it wasn't for me. I didn't really understand why quotations weren't used at all during the book. Again, I am sure this will not bother a lot of people, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

Also, I hate depressing books and oh my dear god was this book depressing. Literally you think "this cannot possibly get more depressing," and then someone else dies. Please read trigger warnings closely because something toward end of book caught me off guard and had me crying like a baby.

I think this book will appeal to a lot of people, it just was not my style!

A Language of Limbs is a tricky one to review—it’s a novel that I really loved in places, but really struggled with in others. Despite its flaws (or, more accurately, things that didn’t mesh with my personal tastes), the novel is a wonderful depiction of queer love, joy, and resilience with a very thoroughly researched representation of Australia’s queer history. I can easily see Hardcastle becoming a prominent voice in the contemporary queer & lesbian literary scene, and it will be well-deserved.

The novel is told in alternating perspectives—limbs one and two—with each following a (mostly) nameless woman as she grows into her sexuality and experiences the shifting dynamics of queer representation and politics in the last decades of the twentieth century. Hardcastle tackles several topics and ideas through these characters, and is mostly successful in doing so. Limbs one and two each have their own relationship to education as an institution, to religion, to unloving blood relatives and loving chosen families, to compulsive heterosexuality, and to queer culture and history. But where things stumble just a touch is Hardcastle’s integration of Aboriginal representation; comments that were made regarding Australia’s long and dark history of robbing Indigenous peoples of their land and their children stick out like a sore thumb—a necessary topic to cover, but one that reads like a checklist of political talking points rather than a carefully integrated element of the novel.

Hardcastle’s writing is generally very strong—descriptive where it needs to be, emotional without being overwritten, and propulsive. The interplay between limbs one and two allowed the novel to just fly by, and I found the book difficult to put down—just one more cycle through these characters’ lives, please! But Hardcastle wrote this novel as part of their PhD work, and it does show in a sort of Iowa-writer’s-workshop way, iykwim. I don’t know how to say this delicately, but the poetry woven throughout the novel was not good, and said poetry being good was somewhat integral to events in the novel. I also found certain sections of the book to play a little bit into the phenomenon of queer fiction being just so incredibly sad and traumatic. If something heartbreaking can happen to these characters, it does, often very explicitly. And while there are necessary reasons for some of this—the devastation of the AIDS crisis, for example—it just feels like a LOT crammed into 200 pages.

But I am overall very happy to have read this novel, as it put a promising author onto my radar and allowed me to learn so much about Australia’s own queer history and culture. An emotionally difficult novel at times, but one that is perfect for an introspective Sunday afternoon.

Thank you to the publisher for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Just found a new favorite book.

I am in awe of this raw, romantic, devastating, and disorienting read. I’ve really never read something written in this way. In this book we follow two limbs, or two POVs where one girl chooses to embrace her sexuality, starting with admitting her love to her childhood best friend, and one where the girl chooses to suppress those feelings. We watch as these two story lines oppose and intersect each other, weaving us through Australia and the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s.

This book is so raw and rips your heart right out of your body. In limb 1, we follow the girl who chose to come out, her found queer family, and her finding the love of her life. In limb 2, we follow the girl who chose to suppress her feelings, deciding to be with men, and how she is constantly haunted by what never was when trying to find contentment with her choice to stay closeted.

In both story lines we see girls devastated by love, by family resentments, trying to grow as individual people outside of their identities. But in opposition in both storylines, we see the difference in how they are treated by police, by the establishment, and how differently their communities are affected by AIDS.

The writing is poetic, gentle, and haunting. It’ll float around dreamily and then confront you head on with some of the rawest descriptions of grief and loss. I do not have enough words to describe my love of this book and I can’t wait to reread it.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC!

6 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for the advance copy of this beautiful novel. My god, what a triumph this novel is. I could feel the truthfulness of it in my bones because I've been there. I'm 47 years old, and in some ways, on some days, I'm STILL there. It may be 2025, but being queer still isn't easy. There are plenty of days when I battle against the urge to deny who I am.

A Language of Limbs tells the story of 1972 Australia, two girls, both experiencing queer desire. One gives in, kisses her neighbor, and is promptly ejected from her house (at sixteen!) but her parents. The other is in love with her best friend, but takes the "easy" route - dates boys, goes to the spring formal, represses her authentic self. This is where I wished I'd had this available to me as a teenager so, perhaps, I could have seen that just because you're living life as expected doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, it's miserable. Sometimes authenticity takes time.

There's enough written about this novel to say, without spoiling anything, that the two girls are on a decades-long collision course through a couple of eventful decades in Australia. The journey is moving, heartbreaking, visceral.

My favorite part of this book was the division of chapters into "limb one" and "limb two" as though both stories are part of the same body, the same being. I think that's apt because we've all experienced what both of these girls experience.

My only complaint - and it gets better as the story goes on - but the narration was at bit detached. It took some time to get to know these characters, but I'm glad I made the effort.

This book should be an instant buy/read for everyone. The prose is superb while being intertwined with this beautiful, tragic recount of life in Australia starting in the 70s.

We follow 2 limbs in this story both divergent down different paths after a choice they make as a teenager whether to act on their feelings for their best friend, until they ultimately converge.

Both stories are captivating and intertwining, always leaving you with the feeling of how different a life can be when you choose different parts of yourself to embrace.

I’m excited to see what else Dylin will write because they had such a way with words and with setting the scene and emotions, it transported you into the story.

This is the kind of book that makes me love reading ARCs because it just takes you by surprise how great books can be. I can’t say enough good things about this book!

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC in exchange for a review.

This is why it's so important to write, publish, and read queer books. This book shares the joy, beauty, mess, devastation, and pain of moving through the world as a queer person. I'm baffled by the idea that I had not read about how the AIDS crisis affected countries outside of the US or Africa until I found this book. Books like this, written with so much raw emotion, serve to fuel us when we're faced with constant anti-LGBT laws and propaganda. I am so thankful for this book and I would recommend it to anyone who needs that fuel.

I loved this heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, chosen family, heartbreak, resistance, and hope. I didn’t love the poetry, but I did really appreciate the stylistic risks and choices the author made—some of them absolutely paid off.

This is my kind of literary fiction book I love: a queer story with very descriptive and intimate writing. We follow two women from when they are young in the 70s and one girl chooses to be out as queer and the other chooses to suppress it.

I felt this story to my soul and I loved the writing style - it almost felt like I was being told this story out loud and this was one of the first time that a book that didn’t have quotation marks made sense to me. I actually felt like it added a lot to my experience. This is your warning though that it didn’t have quotation marks because I know a lot of people do not like that. I could see this being an amazing audiobook though if you wanted to go that route. Some might say this was overwritten and had too lyrical of writing but I don’t think so.

The only complaint I have is in the beginning the two storylines didn’t feel extremely unique but once I figured it out that it was two separate people I didn’t have a hard time with it.

I highly recommend this! A solid 4.5 star read.

✨ A Language of Limbs follows two queer women—strangers to each other—living in Australia. In alternating chapters, we follow the lives of these women as they navigate romance, grief, loss, and the AIDS crisis. Spanning three decades, A Language of Limbs is both a coming of age story and a story of loss. ✨

Review:

A Language of Limbs felt both familiar and a stranger. On the former, A Language of Limbs includes several common tropes found in queer media set in the late 20th century: the case of being closeted, the widespread grief and anguish that arose during the AIDS crisis, and the found family trope associated with the queer community.

This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy this novel because of this familiarity. However, it can be seen a bit overdone in the media space for some. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the story. It was both touching and poignant as it touches on many important subjects. You can also just feel the love poured into the book by the author, and I think that is worth praising. I would love this story to be adapted.

However, I did have one minor problem with the book and that was the writing style. At certain points, I felt the prose was too flowery and tried to be something it didn’t need to be. Combined with the dual POVs, I wished the story was executed in a more conventional way to be palatable for general audiences given it touches on many important themes.

Read this if you are into:
💚 queer literary works
💚 queer romances
💚 poetry

Would I read it again? Yes