It was interesting to watch these people latch onto this woman and her own seemingly unfeeling attitude toward them. Each narrator has their own idealized view of who she is, and they can’t compute when she doesn’t fit in that box. I also thought a lot about the necessity of performing some sort of victimhood in the face of trauma in that it is almost required, I think, that someone might appear damaged or might perform their victimhood in a way that makes their trauma legible to others. Here, we have a protagonist who has experienced trauma, but is refusing to perform any kind of victimhood. She only really offers us tiny moments where she’s willing to exhibit vulnerability.

I am not going to lie; this book floored me in a good way. The author did a spectacular job showcasing how society views the body of women in such a layered way. The story is told from the perspective of three characters: The novel charts her physical and mental change into a new person who eschews many societal norms and finds meaning in making meditation and fitness videos online, attracting a huge following. An unnerving, compelling and utterly contemporary debut novel about one woman's metamorphosis into an online phenomenon, from a Sunday Times Short Story Award-shortlisted writer. She is watched by Elliot as he trains in the gym. He notices her dedication to building her body and taking up space, and he is drawn to her strength. She is observed by her mother, as she grows from a taciturn, tremulous child into a determined and distant woman, who severs all familial ties. She is observed by her former colleague Susie, who offers her sanctuary and support as she leaves her partner and her job and rebuilds her life, transforms her body, and reinvents herself online. Each of these three witnesses to the woman desires closeness. Each is left with only the husk of who she was before she became someone else: a woman on a singular and solitary path with the power to inspire and to influence her followers, for good and ill. An oblique, intimate novel told in lucid, beguiling prose, Chrysalis a story about solitude and selfhood, and about the blurred line between self-care and narcissism. It is about controlling the body and the mind, about the place of the individual within society and what is means when someone choses to leave society behind. It is strikingly contemporary story about the search for answers and those we trust to give them to us.

Chrysalis tells of one unnamed woman’s self-transformation into an online phenomenon from the perspective of three other people: Elliot, who watches her obsessively in the gym; her mother Bella, who frets about the person her anxious child has grown into; and Susie, a former colleague and friend. Elliot, Bella and Susie need her, in surprisingly similar ways. They sound alike too, their language limpid and eerie, a queasy wellness blend of psychoanalysis and internet niceness that has them speak of transitional objects, optimisation, flow, authenticity, containment. The book as a whole made me think about how much we want to talk about ourselves, and how basic our resources are. It doesn’t have a particular thesis on online selfhood, though – it’s all in the telling, which is gripping and subtle. Small pieces of information are drip fed to the reader, each moment viewed and reviewed across the different narratives. It feels fizzy, with all these pops of observation on the move. Jacqueline Alnes: This book seems so much about perception: how we view ourselves, how we view other people, the world. What about the novel allowed you to explore that? Consider the above question in light of what Susie says here. Although some ask about Nicola's friends and family and wonder where the children are, many are moved by her presence, her strength, her stillness – her inner power.

Internet is performative. Have to be seen to say the right thing. Difficult to show solidarity with someone different.Things have changed a lot since that first day. She's kind of famous. Or at least, she has a lot of followers online. People admire her authenticity, her focus and determination. They say the way she holds her body is a kind of truth.” In trying to understand her through their perspectives, you slowly come to understand the narrators and their experiences. That form hopefully allows a reader to consider how the things that they look at—the things that they experience, the people that they see or encounter through their phones online—are forces that act upon them. To some extent, the things that you look at, or allow your attention to be consumed by, become constructive [or] destructive forces on yourself.”

Each of these witnesses is left with the memory of the person they once knew, as our unnamed character is on a solitary mission to inspire and influence her followers to take on the same metamorphosis of solitude and selfhood - for better but ultimately for worse.Three distinct parts comprise the book, all are named characters: Elliot, Bella and Susie. The parts all stand alone, and while all revolve around the same figure, “she” is never named, and is always a shadowy and unknowable figure. She also defines the three viewpoints being expressed. It’s an interesting way to draw in the reader to feel the pulse of the book. This bizarre little book was one I judged by its cover when I spotted it at the bookstore. I couldn’t look away and it had to come home with me. Sometimes these book cover assumptions make me look like quite the fool but this one had me sitting high up on my pedestal.