Helen of Nowhere - Makenna Goodman

Helen of Nowhere is the fifth book on this year's Booker Prize longlist that I've read, and it's easily the strangest reading experience I've had this year. I read it twice within about twelve hours. Once on my Kindle one evening, finishing it off in the morning before immediately getting onto the bus into town to buy a physical copy, after which I read the whole thing again on the way home. The whole experience reminded me of the first time I read Rachel Cusk's Parade. Not because the books are similar in any obvious way, but because of the specific feeling I was left with. I got to the end of Parade and thought, I loved that, that was really good, please do not ask me to explain a single thing that happened in it. That's exactly where I am with Helen of Nowhere. It's such a strange, singular novel that I feel like I need someone else to sit me down and explain it to me, and even having loved it, I'm not convinced I understood very much of it at all. What I do know is that I love…