I am of two minds about this book. On one hand, I admire Haushofer's project so much. The commitment to representing the monotony of isolation and survival through both the style and structure of the book is extremely effective. At times it is repetitive, because the experience of trying to survive in this situation would be repetitive and not always especially exciting. I appreciated the character's somewhat detached exploration of her evolving psychological state, and her occasional distracted asides, which were my favorite part of the reading experience. There are subtle profundities in here about how a woman might go about surviving in a setting like this, and why. I appreciate the way the prose gets out of the way for the themes of the book, leaving the reader to engage with them on their own terms.

On the other hand, because Haushofer is committed to representing this character's experience through the structure of the book, I found that this lacked a sense of forward propulsion. In detailing the strategies that this woman undertakes to survive her situation, Haushofer sacrifices a sense of broader narrative arc for quotidian detail. The books foreshadows the events at the climax of the story repeatedly throughout, but when that climax actually arrives, I felt like it was dealt with too quickly and then almost immediately left behind. The foreshadowing of the climax is the only thing about this book that creates any sense of real tension, so the definitionally anticlimactic treatment of these events left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Overall, this is a book that will sit with me for a long time and a reading experience that rewards patience and self-reflection, but not always one that feels particularly compelling when you're in it.