Press Reviews

• Kirkus Reviews (Starred)

  Dryly funny and deeply tender

• Paula Hawkins

  Love, death, friendship, compassion & SO MUCH wisdom. I just adore Sigrid Nunez

• Deborah Moggach

  I was totally overwhelmed by this extraordinary novel. Even if it weren't about a subject dear to my heart I would be equally thrilled by its grace and profundity. Sentence by sentence it's a total joy - and sometimes, much to my surprise, laugh-out-loud funny

• Susie Steiner

  If the meaning of life is that it ends, Nunez gets to the nub of meaning in her brilliant novel. I loved it as much as The Friend

• Publishers Weekly

  Spectacular

• Lithub

  Sigrid Nunez orchestrates a beautiful chorus of humanness here, and the novel asks a question we might all be thinking in these distant times: What does it mean to really be there for someone in times of hardship?

• Booklist (starred review)

  With both compassion and joy, Nunez contemplates how we survive life's certain suffering, and don't, with words and one another

• Library Journal (starred review)

  Much as in Rachel Cusk's recent work, the narrator is a conduit and sounding board for the stories of others... Deeply empathetic without being sentimental, this novel explores women's lives, their choices, and how they support one another....Highly recommended for readers who favour emotional resonance over escapism during difficult times

• Dwight Garner

  New York Times

  When I open one of [Sigrid Nunez's] novels, I almost always know immediately: This is where I want to be ... "What Are You Going Through" is as good as "The Friend," if not better

• i Best New Books for Autumn

  A smart look at the bonds and demands of friendship

• Wall Street Journal

  Both wise and unsettling ... This book's quiet discovery is that, no matter how extreme the circumstances, "life must be dealt with"

• Janice Y.k. Lee

  New York Times Book Review

  Beauty, friendship, nature, art: These are the salves to loneliness and despair, and Nunez offers them all in this searching look into life and death

• New Yorker

  I was dazed by the novel's grace

• USA Today

  A touching, poignant illustration of what it means to have empathy for the lives around you

• People Magazine

  Impossible to put down

• Stylist Best Autumn Books 2020

  A funny and moving story of two women - one of whom has terminal cancer

• Good Housekeeping

  Fans of Rachel Cusk will love this thoughtful, wise novel ... This complex tale demands the reader's attention, but is all the more satisfying for it

• Evening Standard

  A thought-provoking novel about life and death ... Nunez widens and narrows the focus of her lens, from the death of the world, to the death of a close friend and back again, with superb control. Her writing is taut, clear and insightful

• Independent

  A true pleasure to read, a novel bursting with wit, warmth, and human empathy

• TLS

  A riveting picture of friendship intensifying as it draws to a close ... a rich meditation on companionship, loss and love

• Spectator

  Brilliant ... The narrative control of this novel simply dazzles

• Mail on Sunday

  Profound, moving and brilliant

• Observer

  Remarkable ... powerful

• Oprah magazine (Best books of the year)

  Nunez's prose is conspiratorial and elegant, whimsical and wise. Alongside a contemplation of mortality are winks: For all its pain and seriousness, life is absurd, comical; we humans are impossible to figure out - and yet so tender