A review by casskrug
Practice: A Novel by Rosalind Brown

3.0

thank you to fsg and netgalley for a digital copy of this, releases june 25th! practice follows a day in the life of annabel, a student studying english at oxford. we’re with her as soon as she wakes up early in the morning on a winter sunday in 2009, until she goes to sleep. she has a deadline for an essay on shakespeare’s sonnets looming over her her head, an older boyfriend she needs to make a decision about, and a routine that she is desperately trying to stick to.

the novel is a brief yet intimate look at what it means to be in a body, how the forces of desire and productivity influence what we do with our days, and how easy it is to get distracted. i typically love a no plot just vibes book and i really enjoyed how detailed and descriptive the writing was, but felt a bit detached from annabel’s personality at times, maybe due to the third person perspective. i did really relate to the way she strives to stick to a routine and enjoyed her appreciation for the small, mundane habits of every day life (making coffee, taking a walk, doing yoga). i can understand the comparisons to martin riker’s the guest lecture, but practice didn’t have quite as much interiority.

parts of this reminded me of the fantasy scenes in claire-louise bennett’s checkout 19 - the imaginary characters of the scholar and the seducer accompany annabel throughout her day. i preferred the sections that were focused more on annabel’s activities and writing process than the sections about those two characters, but i understand that they demonstrate her struggle to balance academics with desire. my personal tastes as a reader just always tend towards more literal depictions of what’s going on rather than metaphorical ones.

overall, shows signs of a promising writer but not quite the book for me!

“And every day she has to catch and deal with little wisps of resistance: but broadly, there it is, the routine is well established, it gathers and directs all her various strengths and susceptibilities.”