A dark, intense, and compelling story of what happens when a young woman falls in love with the wrong kind of man.
Enola is approaching 30 and everything feels like
a lot. The boxes aren't ticked and she feels adrift in a way she thought she would have beaten by now. She wants to be a writer but can't finish a first draft; she romanticizes her childhood but won't speak to her mother; she has never been in a serious relationship but yearns to be one half of a couple that DIYs together on weekends.
Enter: enigmatic writer. Enola falls in love and starts to dream about their perfect future: the wedding, the book deals, the house in Stoke Newington. But the reality is far from perfect. He's distant. But she's a Cool Girl, she doesn't need to hear from him every day. He hangs out with his ex. But she's a Cool Girl, she's not insecure. Is she? He has dark moods. But he's a creative, that's part of his "process." Her best friend begs her to end it, but Enola can't. She's a Cool Girl.
She might feel like she's going crazy at times, but she wants him. She needs him. She would die without him . . . That's what love is, isn't it? Over the next twenty-four hours (and two years), everything that Enola thinks she knows is about to unravel, and she has to think again about how she sees love, family, friendship, and--most importantly--herself.
With notes of
Fleabag and
I May Destroy You but with the sparseness and emotional accuracy of writers like Lily King,
What It's Like in Words is a close examination of what it means to experience the intense emotional uncertainty of first love.
