I’m still not quite sure how I feel after finishing There Are Reasons For This.

It left me unsettled, but in a quiet, lingering way rather than a dramatic one. There’s a muted ache to the whole book, like something has gone wrong but no one knows how to talk about it. Or maybe no one wants to.

The atmosphere is heavy, strange, and a bit dreamlike - almost like sleepwalking through a world that’s familiar and off-kilter at the same time. I often felt disoriented, like I was missing something just out of frame. And maybe I was. Maybe that’s the point.

It made me uncomfortable in ways I can’t fully articulate, and touches on class, climate, and emotional erosion in a way that feels deeply modern and quietly dystopian. Overall, I love the tense atmosphere but don't love the stress that reading speculative fiction brings a millennial like me.

4.25🌟

When Lucy's older brother Mikey dies out west, she also decides to move out there. She's searching for Helen, Mikey's girlfriend. Once she gets to know Helen, she searches for something more but cannot articulate precisely what it is.

The book's setting is in the near future, but it has a further futuristic feel. There are almost daily climate disasters that the world tends to ignore. And there's a lot of resignation and hopelessness in the (non-wealthy) characters. The descriptions are sometimes dreamlike, which kept me engaged and wanting to see what happens next.

Recommended for lovers of speculative fiction with messy characters and LGBT representation.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC.

A slim literary meditation on grief and the end of the world. Helen and Lucy are tied only through Mikey and now they're building a relationship while numbing themselves. It's set in the hopefully quite distant future when environmental collapse is ruining life as we know it, But there are pills. This won't be for everyone but it's an interesting read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I admired more than enjoyed it.

Quick read with twists and turns. Plot gives a sense throughout of something being “off”. Holds a mirror to the fragility of both personal and societal collapse. Lucy’s brother Mikey is dead. She arrives in the city too late, chasing the ghost of a woman he once loved. Lucy finds a crumbling metropolis and has adapted in strange ways. A timely, reflective, and haunting read.

This was a neat debut novel about how sometimes the thing that you end up doing for questionable reasons (like, say, coming down to find out more about the woman your dead brother loved) turn into something else entirely, and the sheer mess that is living a life. Add in the duality of both your life and the city around you slowly crumbling, and things turning up where you'd least expect them, and you have a novel that's a good pairing with the slow crumbling of America this summer. Pick it up and enjoy.

There Are Reasons for This by Nini Berndt is a striking work of literary fiction that explores the hollow ache of a dying world starved for human connection. Set in the not-too-distant future, the novel follows Lucy, a grieving young woman who moves to a desiccated Denver in search of answers about her brother Mikey's death. She becomes entangled with Helen, a professional cuddler who once shared a complex relationship with Mikey.
Berndt's prose is poetically deadpan—every sentence lands with weight, stripped-down yet evocative. The narrative captures a sense of desperate ennui without becoming overwrought, painting a bleak, numbed reality that feels fresh and revelatory. The novel delves into themes of longing and loss amidst societal decay.
There Are Reasons for This says so much with so little. It’s a quiet, unsettling meditation on emotional scarcity, human detachment, and seeking meaning in a disintegrating world. There's a pulse of originality in its gloom, a dry beauty that lingers long after the last page.
A compelling, thoughtful read.

This was a rather curious reading experience for me. I didn't particularly like or care about any of the characters, in fact, actively disliking the one everyone is this book seems so obsessed about. And yet, I liked the writing so much that it kept my interest throughout and resulted in rounding up this rating.

I've always maintained that one doesn't need to like the characters to enjoy a book. Indeed, there's something rather pedestrian about the inability to separate the two. The people in the book are not auditioning to be your friends; their stories are meant to be compelling, not easily likable.
In that, this novel succeeds, and there are reasons for this: it's set in a world recognizably our own but worse, in a way that is a direct logistical progression to what's happening now. And the characters in are, by and large, emotionally disconnected and lonely. In fact, loneliness is such a problem in this world that there are people who work as paid companions to ease one's solitude. This is what two lead characters end up doing, although in different ways.

Why didn't I like the characters? Perhaps it's their obnoxiously disaffected youth, perhaps it's the annoying way in which everyone obsesses over Mikey, the insubstantial pretty party boy with few redeeming qualities except for his looks. Perhaps it's the way they all spoke in exactly the same way of choppy sentences.
But the writing really was lovely, such beautiful way of handling words and arranging them into sentences, so evocative and elegant. For that alone, the book is worth a read. Thanks Netgalley.

I think the writing style is what ruined my reading experience for me. I had high expectations going into it, but ultimately I felt frustrated by the overall tone and prose. Every sentence felt so stilted and awkward. I was basically just reading the same paragraph over and over again. Lucy opens the door. Lucy looks through the peep hole. Lucy misses her brother. Lucy is attracted to Helen. This is literally how the prose was for the majority of the book. The storyline never felt engaging or intriguing, The ending was a letdown too. I didn’t care for Helen and Lucy felt like a one dimensional person. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.

I like this book! I still think about it weeks after reading it. I think it was very well written!! I like the way it was flowing, and how the story was told. I was a big fan of this book!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

A very confusing book. 📕

Lucy moves to Colorado after her brother Mikey moved there a few years ago. After Mikey’s death she seeks out the woman he loved, Helen. I really disliked both Lucy and Helen as characters, as they seemed very hopeless and irritable. There is a big disparity between the rich and the working class in this book and a focus on pharmaceuticals as a solution to anything.

The book has a dream like quality that I personally found difficult to follow. I enjoy speculative fiction and books with a climate change theme, but this one did not grab me.

Others did enjoy it quite a bit, though, so maybe it’s just not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC. Book to be published June 3, 2025.

Thank you to Netgalley for this arc of There Are Reasons For This. This book had a lot of twists and turns, but it was really good. Lucy's brother died and she's in search of the women he loved to find some answers. As she's around her she notices nothing is as it seems.

this was a very quick and enjoyable read! i don’t often read a lot of speculative fiction, but i feel like this had a perfect balance. it’s set slightly in the future, and the ever-present threat of the climate-crisis-induced end of the world is even more omnipresent than it is today. i appreciated how the “advancements” made really felt like a natural development from where we stand today, lending an immersion to what could quite possibly be our own future.

the balance comes in with the interpersonal dynamics — between helen and lucy + helen and mikey especially. in a world so gripped by loneliness, their relationships with each other mattered more than ever, and i felt that weight keenly. i will continue to pick up this author in the future!

“There Are Reasons for This” by Nini Berndt is a novel centered on themes of loss and connection. Set in the very near future, the story unfolds in a world dominated by technology and AI, where the climate crisis impacts daily life.

Although society has adapted to these changes, many people struggle with loneliness in what often feels like a nihilistic environment. As a means of coping, individuals frequently hire aides and escorts to alleviate their feelings of isolation.

The protagonist, Helen, works in one of these roles and encounters Mikey, an artist who has fled from his family in the plains. Despite Helen being gay, she and Mikey develop a deep bond. However, tragedy strikes when Mikey suddenly passes away. Following this loss, his sister Lucy arrives in search of answers and becomes captivated by Helen.

For those looking for a story that explores themes of coping, hope, and connection in contemporary society, this book may be a perfect choice. Thank you to Tin House and NetGalley for providing the ARC.