mrs. s is a seductive, illusive, and atmospheric 2023 release brimming with sapphic desire, yearning, and forbidden love

this novel is essentially plotless. we follow our unnamed narrator, a ‘butch antipodean’, as she begins to work as matron in an all-girls boarding school. a romance blossoms between our narrator and the headmaster’s wife. their affair is electric; it’s consuming and our narrator teeters on obsessive. mrs. s is a passionate “no plot, just vibes” novel that really should’ve worked for me. it’s sexy and erotic, but i think it loses itself in its attempt to be unique

there were many small moments where i could see the beauty and the author’s genius, but those moments were fleeting. for the most part, this book was tedious and exhausting. from the decision to make every character nameless, to the relentless staccato style of writing that leads to intangible, ungraspable descriptions, as well as the lack of punctuation and grammar. this novel felt like a chore to get through.

i don’t think this was a bad debut by any means; it just didn’t work for me, unfortunately. i’m so sad about it.