I couldn’t tell you the last time I got absolutely dragged into a book. Little Scratch, the debut novel from Rebecca Watson, is kind of like VR but with reading. You become caught up into the thinking patterns of the speaker so much that you might end up having a parallel tangent of your own while you’re working your way through hers — it’s so fluidly and funnily written.
When you’re working through trauma (such as sexual assault as the speaker is here; trigger warning if you decide to delve in) your thinking doesn’t work in a linear mode from left to right like a book would typically read. Your mind leaps from one thought to another tangentially and simultaneously, often while you’re going through the monotony of the day that both keeps you grounded and nearly pushes you over the edge. The words in this novel are formatted so that you need to keep track of multiple lines of thought at once, with two or more instances acutely described in columns side by side. You’ll have to read back like you’d have to rewire a thought in your own mind to fully understand it and where it came from, giving you the opportunity to interpret the throughlines differently. You’ll feel the bug bite on your shin itch as the speaker draws blood from the scabs behind her knees in a bathroom stall. You’ll recall the countless times you ended up on the 5th floor of a stairwell and didn’t recall passing through two, three, or four.
Every part of this book is so thought-through that when I noticed little dents on the paper while reading, I had my own side conversation with myself about whether or not the publishers had sought out materials that would remind readers of the thumbtacks on the book’s jacket, or if it’s just some lucky coincidence. After coming to the conclusion that this would be a ludicrous detail on which to spend money I was almost even happier that it ended up this way on accident. (But did it though?)
This is something worth grabbing a physical copy from your local bookstore. Holding it physically – checking you didn’t turn two pages instead of one, holding your finger on one thought while you cycle through another, feeling or questioning the texture of the paper — it all feeds into the weight of what the speaker is going through as she checks her phone and keeps herself hydrated through one full day.
You can lean into (or get past) the overly-enthusiastic reading of the clip below, but I’d recommend just picking it up if you can for the full experience. Check out other great releases from Double Day Books on their Instagram here, too.