All Fours

by Miranda July

Miranda July’s All Fours was, frankly, ridiculous. What began as a promising exploration of midlife unraveling quickly spiraled into a self-indulgent fever dream. While July’s signature quirkiness occasionally lands with insight, much of the novel felt like performance art masquerading as fiction. The narrator’s impulsive detour from a cross-country road trip devolves into a series of increasingly absurd encounters and obsession, culminating in a portrayal of her child as disturbingly non-gendered, and not in a thoughtful or nuanced way, but in a manner that felt more like provocation than purpose. The book toys with identity, desire, and domesticity, but rarely lands with emotional truth. I left the final page feeling more baffled than moved.