What do you think?
Rate this book
If You Love It, Let It Kill You
Recommended Summer Reading according to The New York Times, Elle, Zibby Owens, and the Minnesota Star Tribune
“A dishy work of autofiction that everyone will be talking about.”
—The New York Times
A refreshingly irreverent novel about art, desire, domesticity, freedom, and the intricacies of the twenty-first-century female experience, from the acclaimed writer Hannah Pittard.
A novelist learns that an unflattering version of herself will appear prominently—and soon—in her ex-husband’s debut novel. For a week, her life continues largely unaffected by the news—she cooks, runs, teaches, entertains—but the morning after baking mac ’n’ cheese from scratch for her nephew’s sixth birthday, she wakes up changed. The contentment she’s long enjoyed is gone. In its place: nothing. A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat and a game called Dead Body.
Steeped in the strangeness of contemporary life and suggestive of expansive metaphoric possibilities, If You Love It, Let It Kill You is a deeply nuanced and disturbingly funny examination of memory, ownership, and artistic expression.
“A dishy work of autofiction that everyone will be talking about.”
—The New York Times
A refreshingly irreverent novel about art, desire, domesticity, freedom, and the intricacies of the twenty-first-century female experience, from the acclaimed writer Hannah Pittard.
A novelist learns that an unflattering version of herself will appear prominently—and soon—in her ex-husband’s debut novel. For a week, her life continues largely unaffected by the news—she cooks, runs, teaches, entertains—but the morning after baking mac ’n’ cheese from scratch for her nephew’s sixth birthday, she wakes up changed. The contentment she’s long enjoyed is gone. In its place: nothing. A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat and a game called Dead Body.
Steeped in the strangeness of contemporary life and suggestive of expansive metaphoric possibilities, If You Love It, Let It Kill You is a deeply nuanced and disturbingly funny examination of memory, ownership, and artistic expression.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published July 15, 2025
178 people are currently reading
15779 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews
August 4, 2025
sounds good to me!
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the arc)
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the arc)
July 22, 2025
A few weeks ago, David Brooks ran out of things to write about in the New York Times and so decided to pour more water over some old tea bag about the death of literary fiction.
“America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women,” he wrote, and “the public taste is occupied with their trash.”
No — wait — that was Nathaniel Hawthorne back in 1855, but you get the idea. Our latest novels, Brooks wrote, have grown timid and insular.
As someone who’s been reviewing fiction every week for three decades and often feels moved and dazzled, I could sense a rebuttal swelling in my evidently easily pleased brain. Just over the last few months, Bruce Holsinger’s “Culpability” tackled the ethical implications of AI, Susan Choi’s “Flashlight” explored the abiding tragedy of North Korea, Karen Russell’s “The Antidote” conjured up a magical tale of environmental destruction in the American West, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Dream Count” followed the intertwined lives of women in the United States and Africa.
Timid and insular, sir? I think not.
But it was then, perched atop my high dudgeon, that I noticed I was reading Hannah Pittard’s “If You Love It, Let It Kill You.” Pittard, as you may know from her 2023 memoir, “We Are Too Many,” is an English professor in Kentucky whose husband cheated on her. Now she’s written a novel about an English professor in Kentucky whose husband cheated on her. It sounds like the kind of book you’d want to keep on the bottom shelf if you had to debate David Brooks about the ambition and audacity of contemporary American fiction....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
“America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women,” he wrote, and “the public taste is occupied with their trash.”
No — wait — that was Nathaniel Hawthorne back in 1855, but you get the idea. Our latest novels, Brooks wrote, have grown timid and insular.
As someone who’s been reviewing fiction every week for three decades and often feels moved and dazzled, I could sense a rebuttal swelling in my evidently easily pleased brain. Just over the last few months, Bruce Holsinger’s “Culpability” tackled the ethical implications of AI, Susan Choi’s “Flashlight” explored the abiding tragedy of North Korea, Karen Russell’s “The Antidote” conjured up a magical tale of environmental destruction in the American West, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “Dream Count” followed the intertwined lives of women in the United States and Africa.
Timid and insular, sir? I think not.
But it was then, perched atop my high dudgeon, that I noticed I was reading Hannah Pittard’s “If You Love It, Let It Kill You.” Pittard, as you may know from her 2023 memoir, “We Are Too Many,” is an English professor in Kentucky whose husband cheated on her. Now she’s written a novel about an English professor in Kentucky whose husband cheated on her. It sounds like the kind of book you’d want to keep on the bottom shelf if you had to debate David Brooks about the ambition and audacity of contemporary American fiction....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
Read
April 19, 2025A deeply unpleasant read. Somehow I didn’t realize this was ‘auto fiction’—sometimes the more gossipy and shallow aspects of contemporary literary lights don’t register with me, I’m not on much social media and avoid reading pieces about authors, whom I find fairly irrelevant once a book is published, vs reviews of their books, which can be interesting sometimes, so honestly I just thought this book was about a snippy person who wished her ex husband had more hair. And he seemed a very self centered typical guy and also not very interesting, just a person who hasn’t figured out yet what to do with his life. I began to wonder why anyone had decided to spend their time writing such a shallow book, and after that I began to wonder why I was reading it, and then I came to the end.
April 8, 2025
I have a background in writing creative nonfiction that makes it hard for me to be kind or objective about books or essays based on the writer’s own life, so I don’t usually seek them out. But this trend of marketing CNF as “autofiction” has made it harder to avoid, and I didn’t realize this was autofiction until I’d already committed to reviewing it. So please take this review with a huge grain of salt, because when it comes to autofiction, I am salty AF.
With all that out of the way: respectfully, and with all the love in my heart, this book is extremely up its own ass.
CNF is unlike any other genre. When you make yourself the main character, you force your audience to see your point of view. You become the protagonist, even in situations where you may not have been, which sets up an inherent “untruth” in the narrative. In other words, narrators of memoirs or works of autofiction are unreliable narrators, 100% of the time. This can be okay if the writer is self aware. In my experience, though, that self awareness is very rare. The most common trap I see autofiction writers fall into is putting all of their effort into making themselves a sympathetic, compelling character rather than focusing on what would make the most sense narratively, which tends to come across as defensive. Unfortunately, IF YOU LOVE IT, LET IT KILL YOU is no exception. You can feel the writer’s intent coming through in every word she writes—look how clever I am, look how put upon, look how misunderstood—and it becomes a distraction. Her story has the legs to stand on its own, but she doesn’t let it.
I don’t want to be THAT GUY and talk about Hannah Pittard’s life (although please Google the lore behind this release if you haven’t; you’re in for a treat). And it’s tough to criticize IYLILIKY without feeling like I’m picking on someone’s actual feelings, family, and life (which, PS, is another big reason why someone might choose this genre… ask me how I know 😙). But if you do know Hannah’s background, you know that IYLILIKY is basically a diss track in book form. And it was clear to me that at the time she wrote this, she hadn’t fully processed all the events and emotions she was trying to capture. She was not ready to write this book yet, and it shows.
I keep seeing IYLILIKY compared to ALL FOURS by Miranda July. You will be disappointed if you seek out this book based on that comparison. ALL FOURS has a story to tell, and it prioritizes that story above all else. Miranda July may have made herself the protagonist of ALL FOURS, but making herself the protagonist does not come through on the page as her primary reason for writing it—you feel me?
Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
With all that out of the way: respectfully, and with all the love in my heart, this book is extremely up its own ass.
CNF is unlike any other genre. When you make yourself the main character, you force your audience to see your point of view. You become the protagonist, even in situations where you may not have been, which sets up an inherent “untruth” in the narrative. In other words, narrators of memoirs or works of autofiction are unreliable narrators, 100% of the time. This can be okay if the writer is self aware. In my experience, though, that self awareness is very rare. The most common trap I see autofiction writers fall into is putting all of their effort into making themselves a sympathetic, compelling character rather than focusing on what would make the most sense narratively, which tends to come across as defensive. Unfortunately, IF YOU LOVE IT, LET IT KILL YOU is no exception. You can feel the writer’s intent coming through in every word she writes—look how clever I am, look how put upon, look how misunderstood—and it becomes a distraction. Her story has the legs to stand on its own, but she doesn’t let it.
I don’t want to be THAT GUY and talk about Hannah Pittard’s life (although please Google the lore behind this release if you haven’t; you’re in for a treat). And it’s tough to criticize IYLILIKY without feeling like I’m picking on someone’s actual feelings, family, and life (which, PS, is another big reason why someone might choose this genre… ask me how I know 😙). But if you do know Hannah’s background, you know that IYLILIKY is basically a diss track in book form. And it was clear to me that at the time she wrote this, she hadn’t fully processed all the events and emotions she was trying to capture. She was not ready to write this book yet, and it shows.
I keep seeing IYLILIKY compared to ALL FOURS by Miranda July. You will be disappointed if you seek out this book based on that comparison. ALL FOURS has a story to tell, and it prioritizes that story above all else. Miranda July may have made herself the protagonist of ALL FOURS, but making herself the protagonist does not come through on the page as her primary reason for writing it—you feel me?
Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
July 27, 2025
4.25⭐️ this was hilarious, uncomfy, a little bit of a bummer, and excellent litfic. I love that she wrote an autofiction book following her ex husband wrote an autofiction book portraying her in a terrible light and justifying his affair with her best friend. I enjoyed the way her trauma and heartbreak following this fallout resurfaced after the publication of his book. And how it depicted the long lasting effects of what happened even when her life had become seemingly perfect. I love how real and messy the FMC is and how it didn’t really feel like a justification or argument against what he wrote but more just a realistic take on her mental health, anxieties, and personal problems. She definitely wasn’t a fully likable FMC but that’s what made this feel realistic and raw.
I really wish we could just leave animals out of our problems but I did really love the section with the “talking cat” lol.
••••••••••••••
Hannah wrote a revenge novel after her icky ex husband wrote a novel portraying her horribly and for that alone I’d give this 5 stars.
I really wish we could just leave animals out of our problems but I did really love the section with the “talking cat” lol.
••••••••••••••
Hannah wrote a revenge novel after her icky ex husband wrote a novel portraying her horribly and for that alone I’d give this 5 stars.
April 27, 2025
I had no background on the drama that surrounds Hannah Pittard and her ex-husband, but honestly I am a sucker for some mess. I liked that this kind of was a revenge novel without being one at the same time - it centers on Hana and her life, her family, her new relationship after she finds out her ex-husband has written a novel that portrays her poorly. The writing style is so fun and lighthearted while also touching on deep and serious topics. The entire thing is super quirky and funny and weird and I loved it.
This one comes out 07/15/2025. Thank you to Henry Holt & Co. and NetGalley for the ARC.
This one comes out 07/15/2025. Thank you to Henry Holt & Co. and NetGalley for the ARC.
June 17, 2025
like all fours, but make it…shit?
October 29, 2024
I was drawn to this book by the title, and it delivered. It's witty and messy, but the messy makes sense due to the inner dialogue the main character has. It's nice to see how emotional she made her characters and how you can connect with them. Hannah Pittard addresses a lot in this book, but she does so in almost a lighthearted, entertaining way. I did struggle to finish this book though; the writing is great, but it kind of got old quickly. Thank you to the publisher and Netgelly for this ARC!
June 24, 2025
As a childless millennial, If You Love It, Let It Kill You felt like a breath of fresh air—and a gut punch all at once. This book captured so many quiet, haunting truths about what it means to be stuck in that in-between stage of adulthood. It’s not flashy, not gimmicky, and it doesn’t try to turn existential dread into a punchline. It just is—raw, honest, and deeply relatable.
One of the strongest threads for me was how it handles the slow unraveling of identity. That creeping sense of dread when you realize you’re not where you thought you’d be by now. That familiar panic when you wake up one day and start questioning every decision you’ve ever made—your job, your relationships, your purpose. The book doesn’t shy away from the quiet chaos of a midlife crisis. It leans into it, and it made me feel seen in a way I didn’t expect.
What also stood out was the moment of reckoning with your parents—not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in that slow, devastating realization that they’re just people. Flawed, selfish, scared. When the illusion of who they were collapses, and you’re left facing them as they truly are. That theme wasn’t the central plot, but it lingered for me.
This book doesn’t offer answers. It just holds a mirror up to all the questions so many of us are too tired to keep asking. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.
One of the strongest threads for me was how it handles the slow unraveling of identity. That creeping sense of dread when you realize you’re not where you thought you’d be by now. That familiar panic when you wake up one day and start questioning every decision you’ve ever made—your job, your relationships, your purpose. The book doesn’t shy away from the quiet chaos of a midlife crisis. It leans into it, and it made me feel seen in a way I didn’t expect.
What also stood out was the moment of reckoning with your parents—not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in that slow, devastating realization that they’re just people. Flawed, selfish, scared. When the illusion of who they were collapses, and you’re left facing them as they truly are. That theme wasn’t the central plot, but it lingered for me.
This book doesn’t offer answers. It just holds a mirror up to all the questions so many of us are too tired to keep asking. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.
October 28, 2024
What a wacky, cooky, zany story- every synonym for a silly goose- that is this book. I could not put it down! I feel like this is a perfect book club read because of the plethora of imperfect characters that will spark indecisive conversations surrounding them. This novel also gave me strong Mona Awad and Rufi Thrope vibes; chaotic and heartbreaking in mundane and human ways. I LOVED!
Thank you so much to Henry Holt & Co. and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review!
Thank you so much to Henry Holt & Co. and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review!
Read
August 6, 2025I really wanted to love this! An excellent hook with some fairly intense writing sandwiched between long, analytical examinations of family dynamics that felt secondary to the meat of the book. A lot of words to say: sort of a bait and switch? Interesting, but not necessarily what I clocked in for.
December 15, 2024
"If You Love It, Let It Kill You" is a wild piece of autofiction that includes lots of zany scenarios, surreal details (cue the talking cat), and very dark and heartbreaking moments as well. This novel runs the emotional gamut and I enjoyed it so much that I researched the author while reading it and discovered a well-reviewed ' kind of' memoir which appeared to contain quite a bit of the content in this novel. I learned, as others may have already known, lots of backstory. That was cool to know but had little to do with how much I loved THIS book in and of itself.
I found the protagonist instantly relatable. "Hana P." is a Kentucky college professor who is describing her journey into depression. She is questioning her life choices as she navigates her daily world: her past marriage to her (writer) ex-husband who is actively using her and her (kind of) new "husband" as writing material.. Though she has expressly not wanted children, the latter has an 11 year old daughter who basically views her as a mother figure (another 'kind of' conflict). Relationships are complicated in this book -- including her poky and, at times, too intimate students and ever-present family of origin. Finally, there is her unresolved grief over a beloved dog, now gone, a mysterious and kinda creepy gentlemen with whom she had a romantic encounter, and her adventures in rescuing an injured cat (who happens to talk) and becomes a "throughline" in the novel. Whew!
Pittard's mind is a complicated container of experiences--hilarious and deeply painful thoughts--that seem to ping off the page. The novel captivated me from start to finish. Meeting her best friend, Jane, in the first few pages, I simply wanted to hang out with the two women and be the "other" friend from down the street! And speaking of down the street, it appeared that nearly her entire family had moved within a mile radius, minus her pretty "together" brother who maintains a sarcastic and endearing text relationship with Hana. The family has some "issues" -- drinking and codependency for sure -- and maybe some perfectionism (Hana's sister sends out an "amended" birthday invitation to include a bounce house...).
This novel is well written, vulnerable, and emotionally charged. And SO funny. With flashes of magical realism and stories within stories, the plot is absolutely wild - it glides from deep trauma to mundane daily events and past and present relationships--effortlessly. I look forward to reading her entire catalog.
Pub Date 7.15.2025 📖🖊️✨
I found the protagonist instantly relatable. "Hana P." is a Kentucky college professor who is describing her journey into depression. She is questioning her life choices as she navigates her daily world: her past marriage to her (writer) ex-husband who is actively using her and her (kind of) new "husband" as writing material.. Though she has expressly not wanted children, the latter has an 11 year old daughter who basically views her as a mother figure (another 'kind of' conflict). Relationships are complicated in this book -- including her poky and, at times, too intimate students and ever-present family of origin. Finally, there is her unresolved grief over a beloved dog, now gone, a mysterious and kinda creepy gentlemen with whom she had a romantic encounter, and her adventures in rescuing an injured cat (who happens to talk) and becomes a "throughline" in the novel. Whew!
Pittard's mind is a complicated container of experiences--hilarious and deeply painful thoughts--that seem to ping off the page. The novel captivated me from start to finish. Meeting her best friend, Jane, in the first few pages, I simply wanted to hang out with the two women and be the "other" friend from down the street! And speaking of down the street, it appeared that nearly her entire family had moved within a mile radius, minus her pretty "together" brother who maintains a sarcastic and endearing text relationship with Hana. The family has some "issues" -- drinking and codependency for sure -- and maybe some perfectionism (Hana's sister sends out an "amended" birthday invitation to include a bounce house...).
This novel is well written, vulnerable, and emotionally charged. And SO funny. With flashes of magical realism and stories within stories, the plot is absolutely wild - it glides from deep trauma to mundane daily events and past and present relationships--effortlessly. I look forward to reading her entire catalog.
Pub Date 7.15.2025 📖🖊️✨
August 1, 2025
Friends, this one was not for me. I think you would really like it if you are a fan of All Fours by Miranda July.
Main character is a creative writing professor, in a long term relationship with another professor, and her ex-husband is, you guessed it, a professor. Who cheated on her with, and is now married to.....any guesses?
I think the reason why I didn't love it is because I found her inner dialogue to be incredibly annoying. She is sanctimonious, she has no children by choice- and she reminds you of this about every other page. The kind of child-free person that seems to think it is a superior choice. But she comes across as an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.
The writing is good, and like I mentioned, I do think other people would like it. But yikes. How many times is too many times to talk about masterbating. Sheesh.😒
Main character is a creative writing professor, in a long term relationship with another professor, and her ex-husband is, you guessed it, a professor. Who cheated on her with, and is now married to.....any guesses?
I think the reason why I didn't love it is because I found her inner dialogue to be incredibly annoying. She is sanctimonious, she has no children by choice- and she reminds you of this about every other page. The kind of child-free person that seems to think it is a superior choice. But she comes across as an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.
The writing is good, and like I mentioned, I do think other people would like it. But yikes. How many times is too many times to talk about masterbating. Sheesh.😒
July 18, 2025
3.75 ⭐️
This booked surprised me and I will definitely be checking out more books by Pittard.
I know this book isn’t getting great reviews but I really enjoyed it. I found it witty, funny, slightly disturbing, charming, and even a bit heartwarming. There is really no “point” to the book. It’s mostly about a slightly unhinged writer/teacher going through somewhat of a “mid-life” crisis. I think I enjoyed it so much because I like almost all of the characters and found most of them fascinating. Bruce was definitely a favorite and I love the relationship she had with her friend Jane. Overall Hana is very strange and quirky and doesn’t really try to hide it and I related to that so much and I admired her. Additionally this felt somewhat autobiographical which piqued my curiosity more as I was reading it.
This also wasn’t a long book. And the chapters were short for the most part which I always appreciate and makes me want to read more.
I would definitely recommend this to certain people who I know would appreciate the uniqueness of this book (and who don’t mind the lack of a plot…or direction…or a point). Really this was entertaining with a cast of characters that I really enjoyed getting to know.
***Thank you NetGalley, Hannah Pittard, and Henry Holt & Company for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.***
This booked surprised me and I will definitely be checking out more books by Pittard.
I know this book isn’t getting great reviews but I really enjoyed it. I found it witty, funny, slightly disturbing, charming, and even a bit heartwarming. There is really no “point” to the book. It’s mostly about a slightly unhinged writer/teacher going through somewhat of a “mid-life” crisis. I think I enjoyed it so much because I like almost all of the characters and found most of them fascinating. Bruce was definitely a favorite and I love the relationship she had with her friend Jane. Overall Hana is very strange and quirky and doesn’t really try to hide it and I related to that so much and I admired her. Additionally this felt somewhat autobiographical which piqued my curiosity more as I was reading it.
This also wasn’t a long book. And the chapters were short for the most part which I always appreciate and makes me want to read more.
I would definitely recommend this to certain people who I know would appreciate the uniqueness of this book (and who don’t mind the lack of a plot…or direction…or a point). Really this was entertaining with a cast of characters that I really enjoyed getting to know.
***Thank you NetGalley, Hannah Pittard, and Henry Holt & Company for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.***
January 6, 2025
I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would, given the brouhaha around the author and her friends in New York Magazine earlier in 2024. I enjoy literary gossip, but the ins and outs of this group's breakups and affairs left everyone looking worse for wear. Still, I had read We Are Too Many without knowing the backstory, and had enjoyed it, so I was eager to read Pittard again.
If You Love It, Let It Kill You is a fascinating work of autofiction wherein the author holds very little back. The writing is clear, concise, propulsive, and FUNNY; Pittard does not shy away from situations and descriptions that leave her looking unsympathetic or self-serving, especially when her behavior or meandering thoughts create the punchline to the joke. Instead, she wades straight into the cloudy waters of middle-aged life post-(very public) divorce--questions of fidelity and procreation and friendships and what the hell one is supposed to do with their birth family as everyone ages.
Although this is definitely written from a place of privilege (Chamonix, anyone?), it doesn't pretend not to be, unlike a lot of the deeply self-serious and pretentious entries into the autofiction canon. I found the book, in many ways, to be a more accurate picture of this weird, chaotic (read: perimenopausal) time in American women's lives than Miranda July's All Fours, to which it is compared. And one has to wonder if the author didn't walk into this comparison with open eyes; the talking cat, while an odd device, is a direct parallel to plot points in July's movie The Future. Regardless, I loved reading this, I saw myself (a white, unmarried-but-partnered-by-choice, middle-aged, southern-by-birth, divorced American woman with literary pretensions) in it, deeply empathized with it, and enjoyed that it offered lots of wacky situations--and lengthy musings on said situations--but very few answers.
Thank you NetGalley and Holt for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
If You Love It, Let It Kill You is a fascinating work of autofiction wherein the author holds very little back. The writing is clear, concise, propulsive, and FUNNY; Pittard does not shy away from situations and descriptions that leave her looking unsympathetic or self-serving, especially when her behavior or meandering thoughts create the punchline to the joke. Instead, she wades straight into the cloudy waters of middle-aged life post-(very public) divorce--questions of fidelity and procreation and friendships and what the hell one is supposed to do with their birth family as everyone ages.
Although this is definitely written from a place of privilege (Chamonix, anyone?), it doesn't pretend not to be, unlike a lot of the deeply self-serious and pretentious entries into the autofiction canon. I found the book, in many ways, to be a more accurate picture of this weird, chaotic (read: perimenopausal) time in American women's lives than Miranda July's All Fours, to which it is compared. And one has to wonder if the author didn't walk into this comparison with open eyes; the talking cat, while an odd device, is a direct parallel to plot points in July's movie The Future. Regardless, I loved reading this, I saw myself (a white, unmarried-but-partnered-by-choice, middle-aged, southern-by-birth, divorced American woman with literary pretensions) in it, deeply empathized with it, and enjoyed that it offered lots of wacky situations--and lengthy musings on said situations--but very few answers.
Thank you NetGalley and Holt for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
July 15, 2025
I had a hard time getting into this novel as it borders on fantasy with the woman having conversations with a cat. Hana lives with boyfriend, Bruce and both are academics. His 11-year-old daughter spends time with them and Hana likes her but doesn't want children of her own. A random man begins texting her, calling her "Hot Stuff" and she's curious but isn't sure how to react. The novel vacillates between her creative writing class--where her students are curious but often confused about her suggestions--and her private life and spying on her neighbors. The conversations with the cat became tedious but of course they mirror the tediousness of her own life as she aches to find meaning in it.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!
February 11, 2025
Everyone’s comparing Hannah Pittard’s If You Love it Let it Kill You to All Fours by Miranda July. And I get it, really, having now read both of these novels. But if you are inclined to dive into the neuroses of woman’s life crisis, Pittard’s is the better bet. I found this book fascinating and wild, kind of like driving by a car accident: you just can’t look away no matter how uncomfortable it might make you feel. It’s depressing at times for sure, and it’s also peppered with lots of triggering situations. But Pittard isn’t as heavy handed as July, and when it came to the end, I was left with a sense of hope. Isn’t that what we all need right now?
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance copy.
June 30, 2025
Hannah Pittard's If You Love It, Let It Kill You is the autofiction version of our protagonist finding her domestic life unsettled when her ex-husband writes her as a character in a novel. This is of course, after Pittard herself learned her ex-husband wrote her into (and killer her off in) his debut novel, in response to which she whipped up a quick memoir(ish) detailing their marriage and his affair to be released a few months before his debut was. IYLILIKY is essentially the third part of this, the autofiction version of her learning about his debut novel and the ways it disrupted her otherwise settled life. If We Are Too Many is a story of betrayal, this follow up is more about how we betray ourselves through the ruminations we fixate on and the concessions we do or do not make.
There were some pithy lines and I do appreciate thinking about the role we play in the lives of others, but overall this felt more messy/dramatic than well executed.
I endorse the comments that have compared this to Miranda July's All Fours, even if I prefer the latter. There's a humor to it, but not one that made me laugh out loud. There's a story and character development, but the fictional elements feel like they suffer by the hand of the nonfiction. It's all somewhere between too serious and not serious enough. There's also a comparison to be made between this book and Jo Hamya's The Hypocrite. IYLILIKY similarly summarizes generational disagreements about sex, ethics, and authorial integrity, primarily in the context of our narrator having conversations with her students in a creative writing course.
Readers who like unconventional form and stories about betrayal and domestic interruption should consider this one. Thank you to NetGalley & Henry Holt for the e-arc.
There were some pithy lines and I do appreciate thinking about the role we play in the lives of others, but overall this felt more messy/dramatic than well executed.
I endorse the comments that have compared this to Miranda July's All Fours, even if I prefer the latter. There's a humor to it, but not one that made me laugh out loud. There's a story and character development, but the fictional elements feel like they suffer by the hand of the nonfiction. It's all somewhere between too serious and not serious enough. There's also a comparison to be made between this book and Jo Hamya's The Hypocrite. IYLILIKY similarly summarizes generational disagreements about sex, ethics, and authorial integrity, primarily in the context of our narrator having conversations with her students in a creative writing course.
Readers who like unconventional form and stories about betrayal and domestic interruption should consider this one. Thank you to NetGalley & Henry Holt for the e-arc.
August 24, 2025
(rounded down from 2.25)
I don't think I've read anything autofiction before, so this was an interesting experiment. I enjoyed about half of this book, and then it loses steam a bit and becomes meandering, but without much of a point. It's chaotic, a bit random, and a great deal like bouncing around inside the brain of a woman filled with ennui. I think I would have liked this more if it had been shorter, but it wasn't the worst read and didn't actively annoy me, despite the fact that most people would likely consider the main character (i.e. the author) a bit unlikable, but that's humans for you: deeply imperfect and mostly unlikeable except to themselves and sometimes their loved ones.
I don't think I've read anything autofiction before, so this was an interesting experiment. I enjoyed about half of this book, and then it loses steam a bit and becomes meandering, but without much of a point. It's chaotic, a bit random, and a great deal like bouncing around inside the brain of a woman filled with ennui. I think I would have liked this more if it had been shorter, but it wasn't the worst read and didn't actively annoy me, despite the fact that most people would likely consider the main character (i.e. the author) a bit unlikable, but that's humans for you: deeply imperfect and mostly unlikeable except to themselves and sometimes their loved ones.
June 8, 2025
❤️ Won in a giveaway 🔪
This book was...well, it was strange, but I mostly enjoyed it! The author is writing about her own life. Of course with her own set of problems. Some of the writing kept me very engaged and some of the writing felt like a fever dream. She talks about cheating and getting cheated on, her divorce, some traumas from when she was little, etc. Her parents seem interesting. It was a little hard to connect with the author because some of writing came off so dark and strange. I do like connecting to characters in a book. She does some messed up stuff like finding a neighbor's cat but lying about it. She also imagines the cat talking to her. Those "conversations" were pretty humorous. (She talks about the cat being orange in the book so I was curious as to why there's a black cat on the cover) The book mostly kept me reading with a few parts that just seemed unnecessary. I did enjoy the book. Thank you to the author, Hannah Pittard, Henry Holt and Company and Goodreads for my Advance reader's edition. Happy reading! 🐈⬛
This book was...well, it was strange, but I mostly enjoyed it! The author is writing about her own life. Of course with her own set of problems. Some of the writing kept me very engaged and some of the writing felt like a fever dream. She talks about cheating and getting cheated on, her divorce, some traumas from when she was little, etc. Her parents seem interesting. It was a little hard to connect with the author because some of writing came off so dark and strange. I do like connecting to characters in a book. She does some messed up stuff like finding a neighbor's cat but lying about it. She also imagines the cat talking to her. Those "conversations" were pretty humorous. (She talks about the cat being orange in the book so I was curious as to why there's a black cat on the cover) The book mostly kept me reading with a few parts that just seemed unnecessary. I did enjoy the book. Thank you to the author, Hannah Pittard, Henry Holt and Company and Goodreads for my Advance reader's edition. Happy reading! 🐈⬛
Read
August 19, 2025DNF.
In this autofictional account, “Hannah P.” laments that her ex-husband has written her into a book and made her smug and unlikable. I read a few pages, and found that the character was, in fact, kind of smug and unlikable. I think what I am discovering is that I just am not a big fan of autofiction. I also think I need a break from reading about women telling one-sided stories about bad break ups. It might be great for the right reader, but it did not work for me!
In this autofictional account, “Hannah P.” laments that her ex-husband has written her into a book and made her smug and unlikable. I read a few pages, and found that the character was, in fact, kind of smug and unlikable. I think what I am discovering is that I just am not a big fan of autofiction. I also think I need a break from reading about women telling one-sided stories about bad break ups. It might be great for the right reader, but it did not work for me!
Want to read
July 27, 2025Sounds interesting
July 16, 2025
Hannah Pittard's latest novel, If You Love It, Let It Kill You, arrives like a conversation you didn't know you desperately needed to have. This isn't your typical midlife crisis narrative—it's far more sophisticated, darkly humorous, and uncomfortably relatable than that tired trope suggests. Pittard, author of The Fates Will Find Their Way and Visible Empire, has crafted her most personal and provocative work yet, one that dissects the peculiar anxieties of contemporary womanhood with surgical precision and unexpected tenderness.
The novel follows Hana, a creative writing professor whose carefully constructed life begins to unravel when she learns that her ex-husband has written her into his debut novel—and not flatteringly. What begins as a minor irritation blooms into something far more complex: a profound questioning of identity, ownership, and the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. The inciting incident might seem small, but Pittard understands that the most significant life changes often spring from seemingly insignificant moments.
The Architecture of Domestic Unraveling
What makes this novel particularly compelling is how Pittard constructs Hana's world. She lives with Bruce, her bald, dependable boyfriend, and his eleven-year-old daughter in a house across the street from her sister's family. Her parents, divorced for decades, have both relocated nearby, creating a constellation of complicated relationships that feel both suffocating and essential. Into this carefully balanced ecosystem comes the news of the ex-husband's literary betrayal, and suddenly everything feels precarious.
The genius of Pittard's approach lies in how she allows domestic details to carry emotional weight. The way Hana obsessively tracks Bruce's banana waste, her elaborate dinner preparations, her surveillance of neighbors through binoculars—these aren't quirky character traits but manifestations of deeper anxieties about control, purpose, and authenticity. The novel's most profound insights often emerge from the mundane: folding laundry, grocery shopping, family dinners that stretch too long.
The Talking Cat and Other Brilliant Absurdities
One of the novel's most audacious elements is the introduction of a talking cat—an injured tabby that Hana rescues and who becomes her unlikely confidant. This device could have felt gimmicky in less skilled hands, but Pittard uses it to explore themes of caretaking, moral responsibility, and the ways we project our own needs onto others. The cat serves as both comic relief and profound truth-teller, embodying the novel's belief that wisdom often comes from unexpected sources.
The game of "Dead Body" that Hana plays with Bruce represents another stroke of brilliance. What begins as seemingly innocent role-playing becomes a meditation on vulnerability, trust, and the performance of relationships. These moments of physical comedy contain genuine intimacy, suggesting that sometimes we must play at being dead to remember what it means to be alive.
A Professor's Nightmare: The Classroom Sequences
Pittard's portrayal of academic life rings with uncomfortable authenticity. Hana's interactions with her students, particularly the enigmatic Mateo, capture the delicate power dynamics of the contemporary classroom. The novel doesn't shy away from exploring the ways #MeToo has complicated mentor-student relationships, but it does so with nuance rather than didacticism. When Hana faces complaints from her students about her teaching methods, the situation feels both inevitable and tragic—a collision of generational expectations and institutional paranoia.
The scenes in Hana's creative writing workshops are particularly well-observed. Pittard, herself a professor, captures the peculiar intimacy of these spaces, where students reveal their deepest selves through fiction while teachers navigate the treacherous waters of critique and encouragement. The discussions of Hemingway's "A Very Short Story" and Barthelme's "The School" serve as more than mere literary references—they become mirrors for the novel's own preoccupations with love, loss, and the stories we tell about both.
The Art of Literary Revenge
The novel's central conceit—an ex-husband writing his former wife into his fiction—speaks to contemporary anxieties about consent, representation, and artistic freedom. Pittard explores these themes without offering easy answers. Is it ethical to mine one's personal relationships for artistic material? What do we owe the people who become our characters? The novel suggests that these questions have no simple resolutions, only complicated negotiations between competing claims of truth and ownership.
Hana's reaction to being "written" reveals layers of vulnerability and rage that feel deeply authentic. Her obsession with her ex-husband's portrayal of her as "smug" and "insecure" speaks to the particular horror of being reduced to someone else's interpretation of who you are. The novel's most painful moments come when Hana recognizes uncomfortable truths in her ex-husband's fictional version of her.
Family Dynamics and Generational Trauma
The novel's exploration of family relationships is both hilariously dysfunctional and genuinely moving. Hana's father, with his cowboy hat and manic energy, represents a particular type of charming but destructive masculinity. His journey from leather-working enthusiast to psychiatric patient is handled with remarkable sensitivity, avoiding both sentimentality and cruelty. The scenes where Hana picks him up from the Massachusetts facility are among the novel's most powerful, revealing the ways adult children must sometimes parent their parents.
The relationship between Hana and Bruce's daughter provides another emotional core to the novel. Pittard captures the particular challenges of step-parenting without the legal or social recognition that comes with marriage. The eleven-year-old's gradual acceptance of Hana as a parental figure is both heartwarming and fraught with the possibility of loss.
Writing Style and Narrative Innovation
Pittard's prose is consistently sharp and engaging, capable of moving seamlessly between comedy and pathos. Her use of present tense creates an immediacy that pulls readers into Hana's increasingly frantic headspace. The novel's structure—divided into five sections with titles like "The Joys of Slow Dismemberment"—reflects its protagonist's mental state while maintaining narrative momentum.
The author's decision to include meta-fictional elements, including imagined conversations with her students about the novel's construction, adds another layer of sophistication. These moments feel organic rather than forced, contributing to the novel's overall examination of artistic creation and responsibility.
Minor Criticisms and Structural Considerations
While the novel succeeds on most levels, it occasionally feels overstuffed with incident. The subplot involving the Irishman from Hana's past, while thematically relevant, sometimes feels disconnected from the main narrative thread. Similarly, some of the academic politics feel slightly exaggerated, though this may be intentional satire rather than oversight.
The novel's ending, while satisfying, leaves some threads deliberately unresolved. This choice reflects the messiness of real life but may frustrate readers seeking more definitive closure. However, this ambiguity serves the novel's larger themes about the impossibility of neat narrative resolution in actual human experience.
Verdict
Hannah Pittard has created something genuinely special with If You Love It, Let It Kill You—a novel that manages to be both deeply personal and universally resonant, hilariously funny and profoundly moving. It's the kind of book that will stay with you long after you've finished reading, continuing to reveal new layers of meaning with each consideration. In our current moment of cultural upheaval and personal uncertainty, Pittard offers something invaluable: the reassurance that complexity, contradiction, and restlessness aren't character flaws but essential elements of a fully lived life.
The novel follows Hana, a creative writing professor whose carefully constructed life begins to unravel when she learns that her ex-husband has written her into his debut novel—and not flatteringly. What begins as a minor irritation blooms into something far more complex: a profound questioning of identity, ownership, and the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. The inciting incident might seem small, but Pittard understands that the most significant life changes often spring from seemingly insignificant moments.
The Architecture of Domestic Unraveling
What makes this novel particularly compelling is how Pittard constructs Hana's world. She lives with Bruce, her bald, dependable boyfriend, and his eleven-year-old daughter in a house across the street from her sister's family. Her parents, divorced for decades, have both relocated nearby, creating a constellation of complicated relationships that feel both suffocating and essential. Into this carefully balanced ecosystem comes the news of the ex-husband's literary betrayal, and suddenly everything feels precarious.
The genius of Pittard's approach lies in how she allows domestic details to carry emotional weight. The way Hana obsessively tracks Bruce's banana waste, her elaborate dinner preparations, her surveillance of neighbors through binoculars—these aren't quirky character traits but manifestations of deeper anxieties about control, purpose, and authenticity. The novel's most profound insights often emerge from the mundane: folding laundry, grocery shopping, family dinners that stretch too long.
The Talking Cat and Other Brilliant Absurdities
One of the novel's most audacious elements is the introduction of a talking cat—an injured tabby that Hana rescues and who becomes her unlikely confidant. This device could have felt gimmicky in less skilled hands, but Pittard uses it to explore themes of caretaking, moral responsibility, and the ways we project our own needs onto others. The cat serves as both comic relief and profound truth-teller, embodying the novel's belief that wisdom often comes from unexpected sources.
The game of "Dead Body" that Hana plays with Bruce represents another stroke of brilliance. What begins as seemingly innocent role-playing becomes a meditation on vulnerability, trust, and the performance of relationships. These moments of physical comedy contain genuine intimacy, suggesting that sometimes we must play at being dead to remember what it means to be alive.
A Professor's Nightmare: The Classroom Sequences
Pittard's portrayal of academic life rings with uncomfortable authenticity. Hana's interactions with her students, particularly the enigmatic Mateo, capture the delicate power dynamics of the contemporary classroom. The novel doesn't shy away from exploring the ways #MeToo has complicated mentor-student relationships, but it does so with nuance rather than didacticism. When Hana faces complaints from her students about her teaching methods, the situation feels both inevitable and tragic—a collision of generational expectations and institutional paranoia.
The scenes in Hana's creative writing workshops are particularly well-observed. Pittard, herself a professor, captures the peculiar intimacy of these spaces, where students reveal their deepest selves through fiction while teachers navigate the treacherous waters of critique and encouragement. The discussions of Hemingway's "A Very Short Story" and Barthelme's "The School" serve as more than mere literary references—they become mirrors for the novel's own preoccupations with love, loss, and the stories we tell about both.
The Art of Literary Revenge
The novel's central conceit—an ex-husband writing his former wife into his fiction—speaks to contemporary anxieties about consent, representation, and artistic freedom. Pittard explores these themes without offering easy answers. Is it ethical to mine one's personal relationships for artistic material? What do we owe the people who become our characters? The novel suggests that these questions have no simple resolutions, only complicated negotiations between competing claims of truth and ownership.
Hana's reaction to being "written" reveals layers of vulnerability and rage that feel deeply authentic. Her obsession with her ex-husband's portrayal of her as "smug" and "insecure" speaks to the particular horror of being reduced to someone else's interpretation of who you are. The novel's most painful moments come when Hana recognizes uncomfortable truths in her ex-husband's fictional version of her.
Family Dynamics and Generational Trauma
The novel's exploration of family relationships is both hilariously dysfunctional and genuinely moving. Hana's father, with his cowboy hat and manic energy, represents a particular type of charming but destructive masculinity. His journey from leather-working enthusiast to psychiatric patient is handled with remarkable sensitivity, avoiding both sentimentality and cruelty. The scenes where Hana picks him up from the Massachusetts facility are among the novel's most powerful, revealing the ways adult children must sometimes parent their parents.
The relationship between Hana and Bruce's daughter provides another emotional core to the novel. Pittard captures the particular challenges of step-parenting without the legal or social recognition that comes with marriage. The eleven-year-old's gradual acceptance of Hana as a parental figure is both heartwarming and fraught with the possibility of loss.
Writing Style and Narrative Innovation
Pittard's prose is consistently sharp and engaging, capable of moving seamlessly between comedy and pathos. Her use of present tense creates an immediacy that pulls readers into Hana's increasingly frantic headspace. The novel's structure—divided into five sections with titles like "The Joys of Slow Dismemberment"—reflects its protagonist's mental state while maintaining narrative momentum.
The author's decision to include meta-fictional elements, including imagined conversations with her students about the novel's construction, adds another layer of sophistication. These moments feel organic rather than forced, contributing to the novel's overall examination of artistic creation and responsibility.
Minor Criticisms and Structural Considerations
While the novel succeeds on most levels, it occasionally feels overstuffed with incident. The subplot involving the Irishman from Hana's past, while thematically relevant, sometimes feels disconnected from the main narrative thread. Similarly, some of the academic politics feel slightly exaggerated, though this may be intentional satire rather than oversight.
The novel's ending, while satisfying, leaves some threads deliberately unresolved. This choice reflects the messiness of real life but may frustrate readers seeking more definitive closure. However, this ambiguity serves the novel's larger themes about the impossibility of neat narrative resolution in actual human experience.
Verdict
Hannah Pittard has created something genuinely special with If You Love It, Let It Kill You—a novel that manages to be both deeply personal and universally resonant, hilariously funny and profoundly moving. It's the kind of book that will stay with you long after you've finished reading, continuing to reveal new layers of meaning with each consideration. In our current moment of cultural upheaval and personal uncertainty, Pittard offers something invaluable: the reassurance that complexity, contradiction, and restlessness aren't character flaws but essential elements of a fully lived life.
October 25, 2024
I didn't want to put it down, it was like watching a a constantly rotating stage of actors in book form. It's chaotic and mundane at the same time. It's what living life really feels like inside your head. Who would I recommend this book to? Probably people who have ever found themselves lost in a parking garage and who talk out loud to themselves in public and get embarrassed. If you love animals, but you love a very select few humans, and you write letters that you tear up and never send to anyone. If you've ever found yourself married to a stranger, or waking up in a bed that feels like it should be yours but isn't.
Hana/Hannah is the MC in this book but it is also probably a fictional memoir of sorts, or autofiction. It's a very blunt view of the world, relationships, family dynamics, fidelity, parenthood (or lack of), and professional realities. It felt like I was Hana listening to my own stream of consciousness in my own head while reading this. If you have an internal monologue, that will make sense. If not, I am sorry but I cannot elaborate.
Without looking up the author, I imagined Jennifer Lawrence as the physical being representing Hana in this book. If you also need to envision a person as a placeholder when reading, there is a free one for you. Lucille Bluth for Hana's mom is another.
I guess this was a really good reminder for me that we are all human, and our stupid, mundane human problems are very real, and not stupid, and very much fascinating to us and our small sphere of influence. I gave it a 5 because it made me want to ponder and reflect on my own life some, which is always a welcome activity.
Hana/Hannah is the MC in this book but it is also probably a fictional memoir of sorts, or autofiction. It's a very blunt view of the world, relationships, family dynamics, fidelity, parenthood (or lack of), and professional realities. It felt like I was Hana listening to my own stream of consciousness in my own head while reading this. If you have an internal monologue, that will make sense. If not, I am sorry but I cannot elaborate.
Without looking up the author, I imagined Jennifer Lawrence as the physical being representing Hana in this book. If you also need to envision a person as a placeholder when reading, there is a free one for you. Lucille Bluth for Hana's mom is another.
I guess this was a really good reminder for me that we are all human, and our stupid, mundane human problems are very real, and not stupid, and very much fascinating to us and our small sphere of influence. I gave it a 5 because it made me want to ponder and reflect on my own life some, which is always a welcome activity.
October 27, 2024
First, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC! This book was like a diary full of all the thoughts that may pop in to someone’s head throughout the day, nothing was too deep or dark. Many topics were touched on including (but definitely not limited to) suicide, fidelity, familial relationships, aging and professional situations. As you continue reading, it becomes clear that this could be a work of autofiction. I loved toying with the idea that the book could have be rooted in real life experiences and then was twisted in to this story, but not being completely sure. Although I haven’t had all the same life experiences as the main character, I found this book deeply relatable and often times had to stop reading to reflect on my own life. I struggled a bit at the beginning of the book to get in to the flow of the writing, but after I caught on, I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen next.
Rating 4.5 stars, rounding down to 4 for Goodreads. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that lives (maybe too much) in their own head and is looking for something a little strange that will make you reflect on your life.
Rating 4.5 stars, rounding down to 4 for Goodreads. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that lives (maybe too much) in their own head and is looking for something a little strange that will make you reflect on your life.
Read
October 28, 2024This book feels like my internal dialogue - messy, all over the place, etc. I felt like the story was a bit hard to follow at times, but had its funny moments for sure.
If you’re a fan of Ottessa Moshfegh or Jen Beagin, I think you’ll enjoy this one.
Thank you Net Galley & Henry, Holt & Co. for an advanced copy of this book!
If you’re a fan of Ottessa Moshfegh or Jen Beagin, I think you’ll enjoy this one.
Thank you Net Galley & Henry, Holt & Co. for an advanced copy of this book!
July 29, 2025
Relatable and funny! Great on audio, too!
July 28, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of
If You Love It, Let It Kill You.
I've never read this author before but apparently its considered auto fiction, aka autobiographical fiction.
I can safely say this isn't for me.
Or maybe it's just the author.
Or maybe it's both.
The premise sounded intriguing but I was turned off by the writing style, the tone of the main character, and the rambling stream of consciousness format.
I found it distracting, annoying, and I couldn't stand the main character.
She came off as unlikable, whiny, and self-centered.
I'm not the right audience for this and this author really is not for me.
I've never read this author before but apparently its considered auto fiction, aka autobiographical fiction.
I can safely say this isn't for me.
Or maybe it's just the author.
Or maybe it's both.
The premise sounded intriguing but I was turned off by the writing style, the tone of the main character, and the rambling stream of consciousness format.
I found it distracting, annoying, and I couldn't stand the main character.
She came off as unlikable, whiny, and self-centered.
I'm not the right audience for this and this author really is not for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews