What I Know about July

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Having read her first novel »Retrograde«, I went into reading »What I Know About July« not trusting Kat Hausler one bit. (That's a compliment. Or is it) That is also pretty much how anxious protagonist Simon Kemper approaches his surrounding, constantly fearing the people he cares about might secretly hate him. While celebrated on stage, social interaction isn’t among his biggest talents: faced with the ice-breaker question “Which animal would you be”, he wishes he could just say, “A wounded one, does that count?” The book is filled with so many beautiful phrasings like this one that a highlighter became my loyal companion.

Feeling like you’re doing well at this whole Adulting thing isn’t exactly made easier by being an artist who has to work an additional day job to pay rent - a detail I really enjoyed seeing represented. The only thing Simon can really be sure of: when his band plays a show, his stalker July is going to be there. Making him uncomfortable. Giving him the attention he craves. It’s not what he’s actually looking for, but it’s something… so when July is reported missing, Simon turns into a wannabe detective trying to find her.

Hausler, who lives in Berlin herself, set a big part of the story there, so as a fellow Berliner I enjoyed following Simon to places that actually exist. Laced with irony and sexual candor, she’s presenting a novel so full of twists that it didn’t hurt when I saw through one of them. On the contrary, it was fun to make up my own theories of what happened - and through the course of the book it got satisfyingly revealed what actually had.

I’m deducting one star cause I’m pretty over writing strangers from the protagonist’s perspective like they can tell their gender by looking at them, using fatness as a reinforcement of a character being unlikable, and similar details. Also, Simon’s age seemed important to his story and it was never given?? Personally I also think it would have been a nice touch to bringing Hamburg in 2015 to life to mention the refugee group Lampedusa In Hamburg, and the fact that now-chancellor Olaf Scholz was its mayor then (though the book may have been finished before the election, of course).

Shout-out to Meerkat Press for making high-quality books that feel sturdy but not clunky, and to Tricia Reeks for the cover design (I keep unseeing the face in the shadow and then being spooked by it)!

I literally can’t say when I’d been waiting this impatiently for a new release, and it did not disappoint. And concerning the ending I can just say: Kat Hausler has managed to surprise me yet again.