Oh, 'Notes on Shapeshifting' hit me like a freight train of emotions! It's this surreal, poetic novella about a woman who begins physically transforming into different people—her ex-lovers, strangers, even historical figures. At first, it's chaotic and terrifying, but she slowly leans into it, using the shifts to explore identity, grief, and the fluidity of self. The prose is raw and lyrical, almost like fever dreams stitched together.
What wrecked me was the ending: she dissolves into a kind of collective consciousness, becoming everyone and no one at once. It’s not a tidy resolution, more like an exhale after holding your breath for too long. Made me question how much of 'me' is really mine, you know?
'Notes on Shapeshifting' is like if Kafka wrote a love letter to everyone who’s ever felt unmoored. The protagonist’s changes aren’t glamorous—she vomits teeth, her skin bubbles like wax. Yet there’s grace in how she navigates it, especially when she temporarily becomes someone grieving and finally understands her own loss. The ending’s ambiguity still gnaws at me; some days I think she vanished, others that she became the air itself.
What starts as a body horror premise becomes this meditation on how we absorb others’ lives. The protagonist’s transformations escalate until she can’t distinguish her own memories from borrowed ones. There’s no villain, just the relentless erosion of identity. I loved how Abrão plays with language—sentences fracture and reform like the protagonist’s body. It’s unsettling, but in that way that makes you clutch the book tighter. Made me hug my sister extra hard after reading.
The way Gabi Abrão writes 'Notes on Shapeshifting' feels like catching glimpses of yourself in broken mirrors. The protagonist doesn’t just change bodies—she inherits memories, aches, and joys of the people she becomes. There’s this haunting scene where she shifts into her childhood best friend mid-conversation, and suddenly she’s grappling with their unresolved guilt. It’s less about fantasy and more about empathy as a violent, beautiful force. I finished it in one sitting and then stared at the ceiling for an hour.
Imagine waking up as your barista one day, then your dead grandmother the next. That’s the disorienting magic of this book. The protagonist’s transformations aren’t voluntary; they crash over her like waves, leaving her scrambling to piece together who she is between shifts. Abrão’s writing dances between visceral body horror (‘my bones splinter like dry twigs’) and tender introspection. It’s a short read, but it lingers—like ink bleeding through paper.
2026-03-16 18:16:12
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