Hmm. Uneven yet charming. Bold yet soft. Relaxed yet ultimately rushed. There are a lot of contradictions at play in this debut, but also much to enjoy. I congratulate the author on the originality of her vision and the daring of melding fairytale and (some) realism. She also writes delightfully, with freshness and wit. But… the pacing is all over the place, there are loose ends, dead ends, tangents that aren’t worth the bother. A firmer editorial hand would have been helpful.
Nevertheless, I think there’s much to recommend here and I wish the author and the book attention and success. Perhaps a more disciplined second novel will reach even higher.

I was engaged from the first page of this fairy tale and thought it was a strong concept in the genre. It had that element that I was wanting and enjoyed the overall feel of this world. Emily Hunt Kivel was able to weave a strong tale and was engaged from start to finish and was glad it was everything that I was looking for and enjoyed in the genre. The characters were so well written and was glad I was able to go on this journey with them.

Brimming with heart, loss, and hope, this book makes you reimagine what home means and where home truly is. Filled with incredible characters and a sense of wonder, you won’t be able to stop thinking about this book after you’ve read it. It’ll seep into your mind and make you think about how places can change you. A must read!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this E-Arc. All opinions are my own.

I find it hard to describe this book but the best I can come up with is: a surreal coming of age story, set in a bleak economic future.

I enjoyed this book, the plot was interesting and I was engaged with the writing. I thought I kind of understood what was going on until a certain society threw me off the loop. I wasn't mad at it because at that point I had suspended my belief and thought yep, why not? This was a quick and strange read, but overall entertaining.

I was drawn to the cover and the promise of folkloric elements, but I just could not get into this far enough. Probably not for me.

I really struggled with this one. The premise had promise—Evie, a graphic designer evicted from her NYC apartment during a housing crisis, is forced to seek refuge with a distant cousin in a strange Texas town. The first half is bleak and grounded, setting up what felt like a near-future dystopia. But then, halfway through, it completely derails.

Evie ends up living in a literal shoe, gets mistaken for a cobbler, and discovers a magical gift for shoemaking. From there, the book devolves into a whimsical Mother Goose retelling complete with a secret society of immortal shoemakers. I found the tonal shift not just disorienting, but frustrating. The whimsy undercut the seriousness of the story’s early themes, and by the time the magical elements fully took over, I was checked out.

Worse, the pacing dragged—the narrative droned on in places where it should’ve come alive. I kept waiting for the story to either lean into its original grit or fully embrace the magic in a meaningful way, but it never quite did either. I think fairy tale lovers might have more patience for it, but for me, it was a slog.

This was so good - in the beginning! I could not enjoy when the fairy tale retelling part came into play. I would have loved this as a literary fiction novel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Pub Date: August 5, 2025

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this book didn’t quite work for me. I was fully engaged during the first third, where we meet our main character, explore the roots of the housing crisis, and follow her journey to Texas. I found her — along with her sister and cousin — genuinely compelling.

However, the story lost me as it shifted to the town of Gulluck, TX. I hadn’t realized this was essentially a fairy tale retelling, and since I don't typically enjoy fairy tales, I struggled to connect with the more fantastical elements.

What initially drew me in was the synopsis, especially the line: “The world is ending. It has been ending for some time. When did the ending begin?” I expected a dystopian narrative. While the book does comment on dystopian themes like the housing crisis and late-stage capitalism, it wasn’t the apocalyptic story I had anticipated.

I also found the writing style less compelling than I had hoped. When I pick up a book from FSG, I expect to be swept away by the prose, but this didn’t quite deliver on that front for me.

Ultimately, I wish the novel had stayed closer to the tone and direction of its first third. It’s certainly not a bad book, but it didn’t meet my expectations.

Dwelling is a story of a woman trying to find her place in this world, both literally and figuratively. It's a surreal fairytale retelling in a world where our economic future is not looking good.

Our protagonist, Evie, is evicted from her home and city in the midst of a housing crisis in New York. Without parents or friends and a sister living in a mental institution, Evie has nobody to turn to. Except, she remembers a distant cousin living in Gulluck, Texas. And so, Evie sets out in search of a home. There she meets ancient creatures, a secret society, and more weird and magical people.

The book starts really great. The New York in Evie's world faces mass evictions caused by the city's deal with the world's leading rental vacation company. Incentives were given to landlords to renovate and eviction restrictions and regulations are lifted. In the end, the renters were not able to cope with these changes and a lot of people like Evie became homeless. Only property owners were able to stay in the city.

In Part 1, we read about New York looking like a deserted city after an apocalypse because of the mass migration, looting, and abandoned personal things on the streets. This vision of New York is not impossible. It maybe even happening now and in other parts of the world.

Part 2 is the core of the story. We see Evie transform from a passive worker and disengaged member of the society to a person who takes control and builds her life.

Another thing that I loved in Part 2 is where Terry, the distant cousin says, that her son thinks that his parent's generation maybe the last of their generation to own property. And so, he is trying to be good to his parents so that they will allow him to live in their home forever. Reading this made me sad because I know this is already happening. Andrew, the son, is anxious about being able to create a sense of place in his future. He is scared of the bleak economic future that's slowly dawning on him, on us too, here, in real life.

Part 3 was weird. It felt like two different plots pasted into one book. Dwelling started with an almost dystopian plot but ended up being a fairy tale retelling. I am not quite sure yet if this worked well. Despite that, this book was a joy to read.

There might be a good story here but the writing was so flat and uninspired that i began to think about the sentences themselves, often so empty if meaning, and to wonder why these sentences were there for me to read, filling my head with the blandest sort of processed-food images, instead of being edited to mean something precise and thoughtful, or excised as nonessential beats and unnecessary fillers of pages. I don’t mind plain writing but I do mind when characters are treated like puppets to be moved about on strings. The lack of musicality and precision was striking.

The story starts off very intriguing. We follow the character in a new journey of finding new life in an unfamiliar town. It was amazing seeing it from the character’s perspective and it gives a touch of reality to what some people’s lives look like. It was also amazing to see the character development and the change in her confidence and life plan. The plot was well thought out although I did get lost a bit at the end when a touch of fantasy aspect was added to the plot.
Nonetheless, a very intricate and quick read that will stay with me for quite a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This book is a weird one. It feels like two separate stories smooshed together, with one book not quite where I would have expected (nor one I particularly enjoyed) and a fascinating faerie tale about a woman who accidentally finds her true calling.

I get what this book was trying to be. Unfortunately, I sometimes feel like the modern age is less adaptable to the faerie tale than we would care to admit. I loved the second half of this book, but only insofar as it was divorced from reality.

The first half of the book, sadly, completely failed to grab me. I just didn’t see the purpose in it beyond the principle of set up and discourse, which was a bit of a shame.

The main character, Evie, has a certain naive charm that only materialises towards the end of the book, and while there are unbelievable tones, they are interesting ones.

I did find the themes of the housing crisis a bit much, and I think I would have preferred a straighter up and down retelling without the first half of this book. It still feels like the statement is there, it just maybe could have been a bit different in execution

A very cute fairytale telling. In the beginning I had to get used to the setting, but as the story goes on, I really liked the style. It's a good mix of dark and cute mystery.

What a beautiful piece of prose! Loved the plot, atmosphere, characters, the unexpected, surrealist turns.

I didn’t necessarily dislike this book, but I found it wasn’t cohesive enough for me. It felt like two different books meshed together.

The first half felt quite grounded in realism, even dystopian at times - but then it suddenly veered off into magical realism and fairy tales where there are magic keys, magic shoes, talking animals and a rushed mission impossible style breakout scene.

There were some really cool ideas in here (I liked the lake with the fish) but I’m the characters were not well developed, and the plot tried to achieve too much imo.

Evie lives in New York, doing her “not a job” job and plodding through an uneventful life. Her general disengagement means that she is one of the many thousands, if not millions, affected when the mayor decrees mandatory evictions for all who rent their homes and premises. Some few saw the signs and made plans for this day, but the majority find themselves out on the street with their belongings.

With potential sanctuary from a rumoured distant relative in far away Texas, Evie - cultivating new bold habits for a new bold life - has to take her life seriously for a change, making plans to recover all her property from storage, rescue her sister from a draconian ‘care’ facility, and assure their futures.

This was a pleasure to read. I’ve seen it described as surreal but, while there’s undeniably a rich fairytale quality to it, I found it to be more hyperreal - taking the minutiae of socio-political conventions and exaggerating them beyond satire until they buckle like reflections in a fun house mirror but retain their definition. After a flying start the book seemed on the brink of that most hateful of things, wackiness (helicopters, dogs) but it tottered back, didn’t fall, and soon resumed and maintained until the end its warm, clever, and deadpan grasp of the situation.

I know comparisons can be odious, but what we’re getting here is that precise atomisation that filmmakers like Wes Anderson/Coen Brothers/Miranda July bring to cinema - amplifying specifics and minutiae, creating a believable distortion of reality which stops short of grotesquery and which delivers, in its wit and perspicacity, impactful emotional jabs.

Kivel has a lot of fun with her prose, it’s airy, warm and funny, and the characters each have their own distinct voice, which is more rare than you might think in a busy book like this. Evie is a thoroughly engaging protagonist - more resilient, capable, and daring than she ever let herself believe - and her growth is as rewarding for us as it becomes for her.

A real treat of a book.

My thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for this book which I requested.

A miraculous work of literature…an embodiment of every oddball’s reality in this modern world. I feel a kinship with Evie, with Bertie, with Noah, with Andrew, with every longing and yearning character illustrated in this book.

I found multiple passages worthy of being shared far and wide…which doesn’t really happen when I read books. I read many.

This read is going to be a big one that rings true for many lovers of magical realism, critics of today’s economic failings, worries hesitant about tomorrow’s uncertain future, storytellers looking for the next modern (not so short) fable. But also to the hopeful hearts, who never close their minds to the possibilities of dreaming.

Thank you #NetGalley for this ARC. I am in awe.

This book definitely wasn’t what I expected!

Living in New York, Evie is evicted into the street amidst a housing crisis with nowhere to go. Her sister was admitted to a mental institution some years prior and they lost their parents, so technically she’s an orphan.

Evie takes a punt and heads out to find her second cousin living in Texas. The only affordable place she finds to rent out there is a shoe shaped building (yes a shoe).

Here’s where the book takes a turn…

She has supernatural powers for making shoes and she joins a secret shoemakers group. She quits her job and makes a plan to rescue her sister. There’s more mystical, fairy tale inspired plots along the way, as she heads into the forest to find and finally rescue her sister.

A whimsical ode to capitalism maybe?

Huge thanks to NetGalley & Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the digital copy to review.

I think if I had known to expect a fairy tale retelling against the backdrop of the housing crisis, I would not necessarily have been disappointed.

Evie, a graphic designer and an orphan whose sister is in a cult-like mental institution, is evicted from her apartment in New York City amid the housing crisis. For over half the novel it strikes an absolutely near-future or dystopian tone with no speculative elements or folk tale hints. Evie, who can work remotely, finds her only other relative, a second cousin in Gullick, Texas, who's a realtor. She throws herself at her feet for a rescue. Renters have also been shut out of the market in this very weird small town with lots of secrets.

Out of options, Evie finds herself living in a shoe, where she keeps getting approached by people requesting cobbling services. From here it is just a Mother Goose retelling. She is forced out of her job and decides to learn shoemaking, which she has a supernatural talent for. She then joins a secret order of shoemakers who turn out to be immortal. It's there that the book lost me.

The tone of the last half of the book was then so whimsical that it felt at odds with the tone of the first half. I am kind of over fairy tale retellings so maybe people who love them will find lots to appreciate here.

I thought this was going to be houseless orphan moves to a fairy tale inspired town and meets a whimsical found family where she finds belonging, but it went from dark and bleak to cozy and fantastical so often that I found it disorienting. The whimsical tone at the end almost downplayed the central message of the housing crisis theme in a way I found off-putting.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I'm sure there were countless intertexts that escaped me, as I'm not much of a fairy tale or folk tale reader (though I did want to be an ethnologist when I was growing up). Nevertheless, the main question that bothered me as I read the book was what kind of (literary) form is appropriate to describe and respond to the disaster/catastrophe/apocalypse that is late capitalism. Kivel says it's the folktale, and perhaps she's right in that it's a popular form. People against capitalism? Sure, but how exactly?