To Rest Our Minds and Bodies focuses on the emotional journey of 24-year-old Harriet Armstrong's protagonist, a psychology student who falls deeply in love with fellow student Luke. Their relationship unfolds with shared intimacy, contrasting with her awareness of mental health challenges and neurodivergence. The narrator experiences profound emotions and vulnerability, yet remains blind to Luke's shortcomings and her own self-image. The novel poignantly captures the intensity of first love as well as the narrator's struggle for self-knowledge amidst emotional chaos.
This memento mori is archly juxtaposed with the narrator's breathless infatuation, which feels as if some great transition was occurring inside me, something was aligning, I could actually feel it.
The world is made anew: I had never seen a winter which was so yellow before Luke I had never really felt gendered Luke and I were inventing ourselves.
While she's aware that her self-conscious awkwardness is the result of her neurodivergence, she's yet to gain the self-knowledge that might deter her from withholding men such as Luke.
The passage where the narrator Googles vaginal dilators will, for a number of reasons, bring tears to the eyes.
Collection
[
|
...
]