Lóri yearns to emerge from her solitude and depression by finding love, but her potential lover Ulisses insists that she learn to be human before they begin their affair. Lispector gives vivid detail to Lóri’s internal journey to find herself and her meaning in the world. Although I struggled with this (due to my own emotional incapacities) I did enjoy it and appreciated the beauty of Lispector’s prose. I typically find philosophical conversations in fiction disjointed, pretentious, and mansplainy, but Lispector deliver’s Lóri and Ulisses’ dialogue with a caring and gentle disposition that reveals the earnestness they have for meeting each other’s expectations. Almost as if they know to have a lasting love, they must become their best selves. Maybe that is way too much spoiler, but it is a difficult story to describe despite its simplicity.