What I'd Rather Not Think About

Heartbreaking, yes. But also so much more than that.

My brother called himself One and me Two because he had been born forty-five minutes earlier than I was on a sweltering day in August. He treated me like his little sister, was longer and heavier than me at birth, and had taken up almost all the space in my mother's belly.

The novel explores suicide, grief, mental health, and obsessions. What I'd Rather Not Think About is a story of two twins. Named in this novel as just One (brother) and Two (sister). They have always been close. How should a sister react when her brother no longer wants to live?

This short novel is written in quite short fragments, as memories and conversations with Elza, the therapist. The story sometimes jumps back and forth and from one theme to another. This way, the author presents the bond between both twins. Both have similar obsessions, with America, New York, Survivor, and even death and suicide.

The novel also contains a lot of data from the real world. For the most part, it is meaningful. Some a bit less. However, the reader can often feel like he is reading facts from Wikipedia during the novel.

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024

 

Excerpt from the Book:

Waterboarding, I told my mother. It’s when someone places a cloth over your face, then continuously pours water over it. It feels like drowning. It is drowning.
And you’re going to do it, she said.
Yes.
My mother sighed. This has to be one of your brother’s ideas.
We’d just seen a film about Guantanamo Bay, I said. Afterwards, he asked if I could waterboard him, he wants to know how it feels, and I said I’d only do it if he did it to me too. So, that’s how it came about.

Details:

• author: Jente Posthuma
  
• full title: What I'd Rather Not Think About
  
• genre: literary fiction
  
• format/type: bookfiction
• country: Netherlands
• topics: #twins, #mentalhealth, #suicide, #grief
  
• publisher: Scribe
  
• publish date: April 4, 2023
• pages: 209
  

Literary Awards:

• International Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2024)
  

My Rating of the Book:

• content: 💙💙💙.75

About the Author:  

Jente Posthuma’s critically acclaimed first novel, Mensen zonder uitstraling (People Without Charisma), was published in 2016 and nominated for the Dioraphte Literatour Prize, the Hebban Debut Prize, and the ANV Debut Prize. Her second novel, What I’d Rather Not Think About, published in 2020, was equally well received, and was shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature 2021.