Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via NetGalley included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

The UK cover of Like Love by Maggie Nelson against a white background.

If you, like me, got excited at the prospect of a new Maggie Nelson book, I feel obliged to temper your expectations. Like Love is a collection of Nelson’s previously published essays, profiles, conversations, and interviews. I still enjoyed reading it. However, Nelson’s work spans 20+ years, so Like Love is a bit hit-and-miss in a way that essays written to be part of the same collection from the outset aren’t.

It was fascinating to see the evolution of how Nelson writes about similar themes, including feminist and queer experiences and theory, subversion, and the role of art and art criticism in society throughout her career.

If you are already a Maggie Nelson fan, you'll enjoy Like Love. If you are coming to Nelson for the first time, I'd recommend beginning with Bluets, Jane, The Red Parts, or The Argonauts.

Like Love: Essays and Conversations by Maggie Nelson is published by Fern Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in the UK and Ireland and by Graywolf Press in the US. It is available in hardback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

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