The central character moves to an old, ramshackle cottage in the Estonian countryside after leaving a toxic relationship. The book is set in the near future and the countryside is struggling with drought and later with fierce storms as the impacts of climate change are felt. The countryside is not so peaceful as the cottage abuts a military training area.
The book is full of feelings as the young woman goes through the stages of grief with her ex and her complex relationship with her not so motherly-mother.
I'm not a woman and I have never experienced a toxic relationship. But I really felt the young woman's emotions, her strength and resolution to move forward.

Set in an eerily near future on the edge of a NATO base and a climate-cracked wilderness, the story follows Liine, a woman retreating to a solitary farmstead after fleeing a violent, 14-year relationship. What unfolds is a narrative of survival and a deeply physical, grounded reclamation of self in a world that seems to be unraveling in tandem with her.

The prose is stripped down yet profoundly sensory, full of the textures of labor: chopping wood, digging into dry soil, and bracing against distant military explosions that mirror her internal state. The dread that permeates the book is subtle but unrelenting, made all the more potent by the realism of its backdrop—scorched fields, vanishing water, and the ever-present hum of geopolitical threat.

The Cut Line was a short but impactful read. The author offers us a fascinating psychology study of a young woman trying to come to terms with her escape from a toxic relationship and find a way forward, rediscovering who she is and what she wants from life. Her personal development is mirrored in the run-down cottage she flees to, and as she fixes up parts of her temporary home, she also progresses her own revitalisation. Meanwhile the violence of her past is echoed in the presence of the nearby military base encroaching on the village. The prose was atmospheric and descriptive without being wordy, and the author managed to express beautifully Liine's journey of self-discovery and acceptance. I would certainly read more from this author in the future and I am giving this book 4.5 stars.

This was a BEAUTIFULLY written book. I especially loved her growth throughout the story. It made me want to know what happens next I posted a review on both Goodreads and StoryGraph.

Beautifully sparse, evocative prose, a slow-building untangling of grief and fear and hope. I don't usually like books so focused so heavily on a character's inner thoughts, but I was surprised at how easy and captivating a read this was. Really beautiful little book.

I expected an abstract and dreary book, and was pleasantly surprised and completely won over by this lyrical, atmospheric, moody and precise novel dissecting the fallout of emotional abuse. The Cut Line follows Liine, a thirtysomething woman healing from a breakup with a much older man who she had started dating as a teenager. There is something of I am a Fan about this, but much better executed, as Pihelgas' talent elevates the banal to something truly meditative and contemplative.

Liine leaves the city for her family's old rural home, uninhabited since the death of an older relative years ago. The home is close to a NATO base, and the war, the only war that matters if you have the misfortune of bordering Russia, is always humming through anything you do. Narratively, the plot of the novel concerns the encroaching expansion of the base into Liine's family land, and the ways in which the seemingly distant current war is coming close and closer every day.

I don't think any other novel I have read in English made it as clear that for the people at the forefront, it is the matter of when, not if. The generations living in the little house lived through first independence, the occupation, the years of post-Soviet independence and the looming threat exemplified by the war in Ukraine. Liine learns bits of their stories left behind in letters, fragments and the very house itself. The painful history and present of Estonia is not hammered down the reader's throat - Pihelgas is far too nuanced and intelligent for that. Instead, the looming sense of threat is a thread baked into the very being of the people in the fragmented stories Liine discovers, the stories of life despite the physical and cultural death the 20th century kept imposing on these people.

The story of Liine herself, a woman escaping from an abusive man who keeps telling her she is nothing without him, and no one would want her, works on multiple levels. Of course, first and foremost, it is a story of a woman finally discovering herself and having the courage to move on despite societal prejudices. A very telling scene is a dialogue with Liine's pushy mother who parrots her ex's ageist and sexist narrative. It is a story of generational differences and breaking the cycle, and a story of women keeping other women on the leash. This simple but multi-faceted story is told in such a precise and relatable language.

On a different level, Liine's escape from emotional abuse mirrors the story of her country. Domestic abuse is a metaphor often used to discuss Russia and its former colonies in feminist discourses of modern political circles, and the metaphor holds for the story of the Baltic countries as much as it does for the more obviously violent cases of Ukraine and Georgia. For decades, the prevalent discourse in Russia in relation to Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania has been the sort of thing Liine's ex told her, almost word for word: you're not good enough for Europe, no one wants you there, what are you without ME. Nothing in the text directly comments on this, and I adored Pihelgas trust in her readers to interpret the text in so many different ways.

What an excellent novel, made for reading and re-reading.

The Cut Line by Carolina Pihelgas is set during a sweltering Estonian summer, where Liine retreats to a remote farmstead to finally end a toxic 14-year relationship. Alone, she faces her pain and the threats from her ex while surrounded by nature, using hard physical work and gardening as a way to heal.

The story carries an ever-present sense of dread, heightened by vivid descriptions of climate change’s harsh effects—drought and heat—and the ominous presence of a nearby NATO base preparing for conflict. Explosions and gunfire echo in the distance, mirroring Liine’s inner turmoil as she tries to rebuild her life.

What struck me most was how the natural world mirrors Liine’s slow but steady transformation. As summer unfolds, her fear, grief, and anger gradually give way to hope and renewal. The Cut Line is a deeply moving and atmospheric exploration of trauma, resilience, and the possibility of healing.

I found this book quietly powerful, a thoughtful reflection on both personal and global struggles that lingers long after the last page.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

I kind of went in blind for this one and it ended up being exactly what I needed. A really special read that has stayed with me.

This looks like a really interesting book, but with the new formatting for downloads, this arc won't open on my computer as a download and is not available in the Netgalley on-site reader. I will be watching for a copy of this book in print or ebook format from the library or out in the wild, but until/unless it is available for the Netgalley Reader (not the app, which requires a smartphone, which I don't have) this is as much as I can do with this arc right now.

The prose was beautiful. A tale of a woman going back to the counteyside as an escape and redemption from her broken city life. I loved how she got a hold on her life, and the little countryside and her family and the entire dynamics of the book. It was a great read!!

Carolina Pihelgas’s The Cut Line is a quietly arresting meditation on survival and self-reclamation. In lucid, poetic prose, she follows Liine, a woman retreating to a rural cottage after years of abuse, where the act of rebuilding a home becomes a slow reckoning with memory and identity. Set against a landscape marked by environmental decay and military presence, the novel deftly entwines the personal and political. Subtle, precise, and deeply atmospheric, The Cut Line is a haunting elegy for lost time—and a quiet hymn to resilience.

A short, heartwarming novel about a woman leaving a toxic relationship. It's a character-driven type of book, which I love.

I did not like how short the novel was. I loved everything else. Instead of focusing on dubious interiority, Carolina Pihelgas related the character to her social context, placing her next to an expanding military base (with the war in Ukraine in the background), and to her environment, depicting the agricultural changed environment surrounding her outhouse. Moreover, the naturecultural context expanded to include the planetary. It even explicitly mentioned the Anthropocene alongside global warming. This is a welcome addition to literature dealing with the interiority of European white characters, as it tends to obscure the material conditions of their existence. I also loved the shout-out to those of us living in southeastern Europe. The author compared our 40-degree Celsius heat to whatever passes for summer heat in Estonia, even with global warming... As I look at the weather forecast for the next few days and whimper (it's going to be 37 degrees Celsius on Thursday).

Beautiful prose! Carolina Pihelgas is very talented. This was reflective and I found myself ready to read more from her! Super enjoyable.

'The Cut Line' is beautiful, and harrowing, all at once. You can tell that this is a poet's novel: Pihelgas' words glide across the page, creating a slow release of horror, as Liine, the central character, reckons with the reverberations of abuse, and the increasing changes in the Estonian landscape. Most rewarding, are the dynamics between Liine, and nature: I particularly enjoyed 'The Cut Line''s depictions of the Estonian countryside.

The detail in this short read was tangible. The descriptions felt like the gardens and animals were jumping from the page. You could feel her emotions as you walked through them. I wanted to linger in each moment longer than they were written. A worthy read.

The Cut Line is a short but impactful novel. It is deeply introspective and expertly covers so many topics, like feminism, abusive relationships, climate change, and the impacts of militarism on rural communities and the environment. I also appreciate how the novel addresses Liine's abuser, using a first-person perspective that speaks directly to the audience. It took a bit getting used to in the beginning, but this perspective allowed the audience to understand the impact of her ex-boyfriend's abuse and the negative ramifications it has on her psyche. Furthermore, the prose is very beautiful and well-written. The audience could just get lost in Liine's connection with the farm and nature. I also empathized with her familial relationships and the grief of an unsuccesful partnership. The ending is bittersweet, but it is fitting for the story. Would highly recommend!

Beautifully translated and beautifully written. I was initially surprised at how short this was, but having read it, I realised it was exactly the perfect length. Despite the subject matters tackled and the lingering sense of unease, I felt as though I was in the midst of an endless, comforting summer in that countryside, and the vivid imagery made me long for it. The reason for my rating is that I’m not sure if I would revisit this work or recommend it to others simply due to how closely I related to some of the uncomfortable things Liine went through. However, I did note down a ton of quotes and passages that I found beautiful or stuck with me and I’d like to keep in my memory.

There is a lot to chew on here. A reflection on a recently ended abusive relationship. How one can drift into intimate danger when loneliness and listlessness is larger than early red flags. Protagonist, Liine throws herself into gardening in an isolated house. Her relationship with the soil grows along with her understanding of self, of what lines she must draw around her.

By description alone, this book is right up my street. And Carolina Pihelgas’ prose is lovely in parts. She touches on big themes like climate change and war through the lens of this one woman recovering from years of violence.

These are all compelling and important subjects. And yet somehow, for me, the sum was not greater than its parts.

This is a slight book and still I felt like I was working through it for some time. In fact it took me more than two weeks to finish a book I would typically gobble up in two days.

This is a solid book, story and writing. I do think it will find it's English-language audience, but I’m afraid I just couldn’t connect with it.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advance copy of the book in return for an honest review.

A lovely book following a woman leaving an abusive relationship and healing while staying at a family summer home.

You get to see her considering her past annd potential futures. I love how she grows and changes alongside the house and lands as she starts her new life.

This is a story of overcoming trauma and transformation through time, self-care and understanding.
The political and the personal inform each other, one becomes the metaphor for the other in this elegantly written book about a woman called Liine, who has to deal with trauma caused by her mother and her ex.

A book rich in themes, topics and emotion.

Filled with a sense of dread and foreboding, but also hope, this was a book that interweaved several themes together in a deft and compelling way.

At the beginning of summer, Liine has decamped from the city to her (one-time) family home in the countryside.

Virtually alone - save for a family visit and a friendly neighbour - and with occasional trips out for groceries and coffee shop visits - Liine processes her relationship with her ex-partner and contemplates her troubled relationship with her mother.

As a commentary on several issues we are all-too familiar with - difficult families, toxic relationships, climate change, war and conflict - this was a brief but compelling read.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the ARC

Grateful to NetGalley and World Editions for the ARC!

After leaving her toxic relationship with Tarmo, Liine spends the summer in the countryside in a house owned by her family where she reflects on her complicated relationship with her mother and what drove her to spend fourteen years in a toxic relationship. Liine used to spend time at the farmstead in the summer, but the village surrounding it has been partly taken over for military exercises and the peace of the countryside is frequently broken up by gunfire and by extreme weather, mirroring Liine's inner turmoil.

This novel is a poignant and well-written reflection on the ways in which our pasts may be in conflict with the lives and the future that we want for ourselves. Liine's internal monologue is incredibly relatable as she questions her self worth and her perceptions of her relationship with Tarmo. The prose is sparse and in all it is a short novel, but every word is intentional and deliberate. Liine adapts to life in the country and reclaims the house and the surrounding land from neglect, which is an apt and deeply moving metaphor for her healing and resilience.

The cut line is about the space between something ending and something else beginning.

This is primarily explored by following Liine who leaves a 14 year abusive relationship and goes to a remote family home on her own to literally give herself space to move on. The passages where she talks directly to her former partner are very powerful and the his reaction as well as those close to her are sadly all too believable.

The theme of this liminal space is also evoked as she is living close to a military base as Estonia prepares for a possible war with Russia, as natural events such as the changing of the seasons and how animals react to their changing environment and also something in between as she considers the impact of climate change.

Overall this is very short and an ultimately hopeful book.

The Cut Line is a poetic exploration of a woman’s summer following the end of a long-term abusive relationship. The prose is absolutely beautiful, and although the book is short we follow an extensive journey of self reflection through all the aspects of life and relationships.

The only reason I couldn’t rate this higher was the lack of speech marks, which I find makes text hard to read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and World Editions for the advance copy of this book.

The Cut Line by Carolina Pihelgas (out in February 2026) is the English translated version of Lõikejoon, originally published in Estonian in 2024. The story revolves around Liine, who has just broken out of fourteen-year toxic relationship with a man and moves to her family’s country cottage near Vōru. As she searches for meaning in her new circumstances, she engages with nature and hears from afar the gunshots and practices of a military base near the Russian border.

This contemporary literary work delves into Liine’s deep-seated depression and paranoia. She speaks to a specific audience—her ex—and tries to move on from the memory of his psychological abuse. She invests her time in nature, in gardening and in trying to control the pests in the orchard. Her landscape is pastoral and controlled, very much occupied by the villagers and herself and is not a wilderness. She has a dual relationship to nature; it calms her and keeps her mind occupied, but at the same time she is annoyed by insects and the upkeep of the orchard. Nevertheless, she uses it as a tool to rebuild her identity and self-confidence. She expresses, “I need to stay beneath the soil, in the ground, here is a safe remote place until I find the strength within me to sprout new shoots.” There is also an undisclosed war happening; Liine mentions hearing gunshots and airplanes from the nearby military base that increase in frequency throughout the book, representing her turbulent mental state. It is also mentioned that they are in wartime but that the village is not affected. Liine’s family in other places are also unaffected by this war, so it seems purely like a device used for illustrating metaphors. The cottage acts as an anchor for Liine during this time.

Liine has a very stressful relationship with her mother, who wants her to get back together with her abusive boyfriend because her age indicates that her time for starting a family is running out as no man will want her again. Her mother’s lack of awareness is like the gunshots in the background—a tempestuous intrusion into Liine’s search for wellbeing. Liine later discovers letters from her great-aunt Elvi who never married but which might indicate that she had multiple lovers and was quite an independent thinker, and these letters resonate with her and make her feel supported, although the letters are not chronological and often seem random.

This book narrates the inner life of Liine and the recovery of identity after a bad breakup. It’s written simply and sometimes lacks direction, which makes the story seem a bit uninteresting at times. Liine’s depression fluctuates and she finds solace in gardening and her friends, though she despairs of her mother and the nearby war. The Cut Line is the perfect book for readers of contemporary literary fiction who enjoy writers like Otessa Moshfegh, Olga Tokarczuk, or Elif Batufman, and who pursue literature that is simple and succinct.

This book follows a woman recently out of a toxic longterm relationship. She decides to spend time in a family cottage in the countryside, located near an active military base.

There's a lot going on in this book metaphorically and mentally, not so much plot wise. On one hand it's quiet and meditative about finding your identity after a large change in life. On the other hand it's punctuated with gunshots and climate change and death threats.

My favorite thing about this book was how I got lost in the lush descriptions and got surprised when a phone was mentioned, because the vibe of the book mostly isn't modern.

A solid meditative read, with important topics.

A young woman finally leaves a toxic relationship and moves to the country to live in a family summerhouse. This sounds grander than it is! The place is not in the best of conditions and is very close to a military base. The threat of war looms heavily and military exercises seem to be a constant presence. Despite this the woman finds peace in the garden although her inner struggle continues. Her mother is another problem as she is very critical and undermining.
Fortunately she has the ability to work from home which means she can stay for the summer and work through her anxieties.
Well written and ultimately hopeful

The Cut Line is a short novel that balances introspection with an unflinching sense of reality. Pihelgas’s prose is stripped back and precise, never indulgent, which makes the heavier subject matter all the more direct. There’s no wasted description here: every line has purpose, and the result is a style that feels both quick and sharp.

The pacing is measured. Rather than rushing through events, the narrative lingers on the work of rebuilding. It mirrors Liine’s process of reassembling herself after years of coercion. The interruptions of military noise and shifting weather provide a constant undercurrent of unease, preventing the book from ever becoming static.

Though short, it never feels slight. The novel covers personal trauma, strained family dynamics, and the wider pressures of history and politics without overloading the reader. Instead, these elements are woven in gradually, so the story retains momentum while still carrying thematic weight.

Overall, The Cut Line is a careful, well-constructed work!! Thoughtful in its language, deliberate in its structure, and powerful in execution. I loved it!

I adored the authors ability to create such a deeply immersive time and place within this novel, it felt like I was getting lost in the garden. Liine's story was beautiful and as the reader we went on a real journey with her as she creates a new life for herself. The books brevity was both part of its wonder and downfall for me, I felt the pacing was immaculate, but at times got a little bogged down with trying to comment on too much at once.

on storygraph - https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/d5a01e8c-c313-4f31-a3f7-66f9e5c2f3d4?redirect=true

I’m between two worlds and don’t belong to one or the other just yet: neither night nor day, dream nor reality, country nor city, ground nor sky. But here I am in spite of all that.

A lyrical meditation of a woman processing the end of a toxic relationship. Liine retreats to her family’s rundown country home after leaving her abusive partner after 14 years. As she cleans up the house and works the land, she also works through the anger and doubts that come with years of cruelty at the hands of her partner. This was beautifully written, a quiet exploration of the legacy of violence and misogyny, and one woman grappling with her past and working to find hope.

The Cut Line is an astounding title that captures both the beauty and internal struggles of leaving an abusive relationship, and finding peace. I was completely hooked from the moment I started reading. Pihelgas' prose helps to fill out the (almost) lonely Estonian countryside the main character, Liine, escapes to after years of surviving a toxic relationship. While working through her dread, anxiety, and isolation from everyone she knows, she finds healing in farmwork and the wildlife flourishing around her family's abandoned farmhouse. Everything around her is changing too, with wars starting nearby and fears of climate change causing an impending doom, and family faulting her for her choices, she feels like she can't escape abuse and torment even when she escapes her relationship. This contrasted with the beauty of the Estonian countryside however, can't stop her as she keeps working on herself and fighting to keep a level head. This novel is such a wonderful, heartwarming, and realistic piece that I think everyone should read at some point.

With Carolina Pihelgas’ The Cut Linewe explores the raw aftermath of a toxic relationship in more pastoral surrounds. Liine escapes from her relationship (with a toxic man, and with her mother to a lesser degree) to the Estonian countryside.
Whilst beautifully written, this wasn't terribly interesting. Every so often, she'd remind us that this is set in the present day. It reads like it could be a pre war kind of novel.

However, her escape is not complete. The nagging remnants of her ex's voice linger in her mind and there is also the external threat of the new NATO base near the Russian border that is set to be based in the countryside, buying the locals out. This also lends itself to the general sense of malaise and unease.

The Cut Line is about boundaries, personal, political and geographical/environmental.

Carolina does great job setting the atmosphere and putting the reader in the places. This was my favourite part of the book, getting lost in the cabin with the garden and forest surrounding me.

The character evolution was flat for me as too many side stories were brought to light. We had war, climate change, broken relationship with her ex, toxic relationship with the mother, lost family letters. In all I felt that done really delved in depth it deserved.

I felt that Liine’ story could be quite relatable, as so many feel lost in this world however, it was really hard for me to connect with the story and the main character.

This is a neat little novel, 142 pages long but the author writes vividly with not a spare or careless word so the reader understands what the main character is going through with total empathy. Walking the “cut line” with the past on one side and a possible future on the other. The question is: will she be able to choose the right side of the line?

Liine is escaping a toxic marriage and flees to the Estonian countryside to a tumble down house owned by an aunt, she and her family used to visit when she was young. It could be a beautiful retreat for her, but nearby, as a reminder of the outside world, is a NATO base where soldiers are preparing for war so the peace is occasionally shattered by the rattle of gun fire and the thump of explosions. However, here she throws herself into physical labour sorting the garden and nurturing the flowers and food crops she plants, settling into the rhythms of nature. Even nature is under strain as we see drought then storms disrupt normal rhythms. Danger seems to be everywhere for one reason or another.

The story is from Liine’s pov and we see her go through grief, anger, bitterness, self doubt. All the emotions which she has kept hidden deep inside her for most of her life and certainly the fourteen years of her marriage. Both husband and mother undermine her, make her feel worthless and always in the wrong. We learn about her sad neglected childhood where from the age of 8 she was responsible for her little sister.

I enjoyed this book (which I read on kindle) and found the central character well developed and very sympathetic. I found the ending quite enigmatic and opaque which made me think about the book more than I might have.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy. This review is my honest opinion after a complete read of the novel.

This was a mercurial and atmospheric read, despite that, it was still incredibly sharp and poignant. Follow Liine, a woman running away from a 14 year long emotionally abusive relationship as she escapes to her family's rural home bordering Russian territory. The Cut Line was a short and powerful read with beautiful prose, I was immediately absorbed into Liines perspective and the narration. There's lots to unpack here and I loved that.

Despite this book being under 200 pages, I never felt like it was lacking in any way. While this book is set after the fallout of a toxic relationship, it’s certainly not about the relationship. You get glimpses into the past but our main character, Liine, does not dwell on the man (greatly appreciated). The reader sits with the Liine as she’s realizing the importance of her own wants and desires. It’s like getting to see the light bulb go off in someone’s head and say “ah ha! I don’t have to live like this!”.

"The scent of carrion rises to my nose. But what is it that's rotting - me, or what I decided to leave?"

This is a character driven story with our protagonist having made the incredibly difficult decision to leave an abusive relationship and moved to give herself the space to make peace with her choice and for it to stick. Through conversations with her ex, her mother and her internal monologue, you see how difficult it is to actually make the move and to keep with it. Is it truly better to be alone? What do you give up when you leave the security of a relationship?

"I am still full of uncertainty because I don't know if I can trust myself completely"

The writing is beautiful and gives depth and colour to this story. The writing is sharp yet lyrical. Reading felt like watching a painting become, stroke by stroke. Or in this case word by word.

I give so much credit and thanks to Darcy Hurford, the translator, because with writing this vivid and nuanced, I can only imagine the task to translate these words into English for us.

Overall a great read and I would recommend it to fans of literary fiction.

Set in Estonia, this isn’t always easy reading, but Liine’s life Isn’t easy either, set against the backdrop of climate change and a toxic relationship. But she gradually comes to terms with her loneliness and change of circumstances through the physical work of restoring her cottage and working on the land. Brilliant characterisation and excellent prose brings this book to life.

I enjoy dystopian novels that chip away at the normality of life with subtle changes (like the frog in the bucket of water that is being heated up slowly until it's too late to escape). The Cut Line is about Liine who leaves an abusive relationship finding solace in gardening. In the background her mother is trying to get her to return to her partner (time is getting on) but also the effect of climate change is getting more apparent and in the very background there are rumblings of a border war. with a very large country! I liked Liine that she is determined to break ties with her partner to find solace in her gardening and her friends. I think this will make a really good book club read. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley & World Editions for the ARC!

Carolina Pihelgas’s "The Cut Line" is a subtle, poetic novella about what grows on the contested border between solitude and loneliness.

Liine has just ended a fourteen-year relationship, and she’s coping by spending the summer at a family farm called Tsõriksoo. Despite the story’s brevity, "The Cut Line" is all about slowing down to create space for the emptiness we feel. Pihelgas shares gorgeous descriptions of the overgrown farm as Liine cares for herself by tending to it. After all, sometimes you just need to chop some wood, smell the mint leaves, and feel the insects buzzing around you. The book is a sensorial delight, thanks in no small part to Darcy Hurford’s exceptional translation.

Told in first person and directed to Liine’s ex, "The Cut Line" revolves around the question of what it means to be alone. Sometimes it’s pathetic, but sometimes it’s downright cathartic. The protagonist’s interiority allows her to reach out and retreat from several relationships, including romantic, platonic, and familial connections. All the while, the threat of war means the farm could be lost at any moment. It’s just as unstable as any relational bond. Ultimately, she finds the most solace in a box of letters that reveal she isn’t the first woman to take care of the farm after the dissolution of a relationship. It’s solidarity via continuity.

For readers who wish for an agrarian escape, "The Cut Line" is a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

In the Poetics, Aristotle said a story (at least a tragedy) has a sequence of events or plot with a beginning, middle and end and that the purpose of the story is not just entertainment but KATHARSIS or purging the audience of pity and fear. Caroline Pihelgas’ short novel The Cut Line does not have much of a plot, but the book definitely has elements that could be described as KATHARSIS.

Pihelgas has published several books in her native Estonia; The Cut Line is her first book to be translated into English. This book is a short first person narrated book very much focused on the interior life of an Estonian woman named Liine who has recently broken up with her boyfriend of many years and moved from Tartu, the capital of Estonia to a remote cabin very close to the Russian border. Other than this move to a cabin, there is not much of a plot to speak of.

As I understand, Pihelgas’ book has three themes: trauma and moving on after a bad relationship, nature and its healing power, and concern about climate change. At least in my opinion, the material about climate change was the weakest part of the book.

It is with the first theme or trauma and attempting to heal after enduring a bad relationship where the title comes. The knife functions as a metaphor repeated several times throughout the story:

“My hands are empty, but I dream of a knife to cut through the thin veil of indifference” (location 315).

These knives don’t scare me anymore. They’re useless. They can just be twirled around and thrown, so that old men who want to decide over young women and their bodies lose their power of speech, and young men who expect women to be obedient and silent go blind” (location 952).

“I might lean a little in one direction and then the other, but the cut line will allow me a little space. A few days, a week or a month to get myself together. And then with a quick strong tug—rip!” (location 1148).

A second theme of the book is nature and its power to inspire and sometimes heal.

“At night I walk to the edge of the forest. The sky’s still glowing the color of sunset, but the forest’s already almost dark. The mosquitoes whine. This is their favorite time of day. The shadows of the trees are long and a little lonely. I want to shake off a day full of words and meanings” (location 283).

“The wind really picks up by the afternoon, blowing like crazy. It’s as if it wants to sweep everything out of its way. Twigs fall from the trees and the plants twist as if dancing. But it’s not a joyful dance; it’s a surrender to the wind’s fury, as if it spoke with your voice and was giving an order: Dance! And you have to dance out of fear” (location 842).

At least in my opinion, a book that is labeled literary fiction needs well crafted sentences worth pausing over. Here is one:

“The days have begun to pass quickly. Time that once stretched out sweetly like endless pink chewing-gum has changed and is starting to pulsate faster” (location 708).

“I feel like a quick dopamine boost, so I quickly post a couple of Insta stories about the flowers in the garden and the evening light and the big oak in front of the house. The hearts start coming, plus a couple of comments. I’d like something more. I’d like to feel that I exist” (location 456).

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this book via Net Galley. All opinions are my own.

epub. 142 pgs. Scheduled for publication 3 February 2026. Finished 30 August 2025.