This is an original and intriguing black comedy with roots in existentialist philosophy. I can't write a review that does it justice, so instead I will recommend this one by Antonomasia, who recommended the book to me last year: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

On the surface and particularly in the early parts, it reads like a simple mid-life crisis novel with a feminist spin, but Kavenna is far too serious and philosophical for that to be a fair representation. It is just as much about the empty concerns and vacuity of modern life and the impossibility of finding enough time to rationalise it.

The story charts the mental disintegration of Rosa, a London journalist in her mid thirties with a comfortable middle class lifestyle and similar friends. At the start of the book she resolves to leave her job, partly because she feels she can no longer write coherently, but it becomes clear that the crisis has more to do with her mother's death and the decline of her decade-long relationship with Liam, who has refused to marry her. Liam soon ends the relationship and Rosa moves out of their flat, depending on the charity of friends for somewhere to stay. Liam is soon engaged to one of her friends, and so far all of this is classic rom-com cliche.

Rosa's thoughts run to higher things - her to-do list is repeated and modified at regular intervals and includes things like:
Read the comedies of Shakespeare, the works of Proust, the plays of Racine and Corneille and The Man Without Qualities
Read The Golden Bough, the Nag-Hammadi Gospels, The Upanishads, The Koran, The Bible, The Tao, the complete works of E. A. Wallis Budge
Read Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Bacon, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and the rest
Hoover the living room
Clean the toilet
Distinguish the various philosophies of the way - read History of Western Philosophy

It soon becomes clear that she will never achieve any of these goals, instead she vainly tries to get various unsuitable jobs, to resolve her mounting money problems and find somewhere else to stay, while getting distracted by occasional deeper thoughts and glimpses of ideas with greater significance. She is also half-heartedly involved in a relationship with Andreas, a much younger male actor, and she is unable to face asking her father for help.

At one point she makes a desperate journey to visit a happily married couple in the Lake District. I'm not sure how deliberate the errors in the train's route were - this may have been done to illustrate her confusion but no train leaving Euston can possibly be calling at Luton, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street, Wolverhampton, Crewe, Preston, Manchester Piccadilly, Kendal, Oxenholme and Glasgow Central.

I was reminded of all sorts of other writers - Sartre, J.G. Farrell, Cortazar and Bernice Rubens to name just four, but perhaps it is closest in spirit to early Rachel Cusk, particularly The Country Life. ( )

This was a profound and quite moving novel which, against all expectations, sustained its intensity right through to the end, never letting up at all. It is surely the work of an awesome intellect.

The story follows Rosa, a journalist who suffers a sort of early mid-life crisis following the death of her mother, quits her job and slides into poverty and mental instability. Suddenly she is aware of the futility of her own existence, and the fundamental questions of philosophy are suddenly all too important, and prevent her from pulling herself together.

Though told in the third person, Rosa's 'voice' comes across very clearly, and the enormity of the outside world, as she views it walking through the streets of London, is fascinating viewed through her eyes. Not a detail is missed, and it is reminiscent of James Joyce's 'Ullyses' though - dare I say it - better and more enjoyable. I also admired the author's ability to zero in on the telling details - the bank employee with his 'faceful of compelling moles', and the ageing man who sits opposite Rosa on the train, banging into her and taking so long over his apology that they were 'in danger of having a conversation' ! ( )

a tale about a lonely, depressed and desperate woman who quits her job to figure it out all. i mean, how many women haven't been on the verge of a nervous breakdown at some point in thier lives? ( )

Rosa Lane is a character to remember. If you like books that are character driven, this is a fantastic choice for you. Especially if you have gone through a lot in your lifetime, you will relate. ( )

I read this book last fall, but what has stayed with me in this story of a woman who is depressed and alone, facing really hard decisions for the first time in her life. After he mother dies, Rosa leaves a job she dislikes and then her boyfriend leaves her. These series of disasters just set the stage for Rosa to fix herself. ( )