-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
an unrequited affair
by Tree Abraham
When Tree Abraham falls in love with her housemate who does not reciprocate the feeling, instead of breaking up, they keep going.
This story begins where most end. elseship deftly and courageously recounts the starts and stops of a transitioning relationship. Having recorded the experience in real time, Abraham combines personal entries with illustrations, photos, and mind maps all organized within eight ancient Greek categories of love.
For readers of Maggie Nelson, Sheila Heti, and Carmen Maria Machado, elseship deconstructs the heteronormative canon to explore the bittersweet, lonely, uncharted territories of the heart. It is a deeply specific yet universal story of modern love that will accompany and enlighten anyone who's been in any kind of complicated "ship."
"Abraham's greatest strength is in relaying small moments to readers, aided by visuals such as drawings and old receipts that give these moments a sense of intimacy and tangibility ... Memoir readers who enjoy nonlinear storytelling and books that test the limits of what makes a memoir will feel at home here, as will all readers interested in discussing the forms of love that exist outside of mainstream heteronormative culture." —Booklist
"elseship is a kaleidoscopic exploration of all that can exist between two people caught in the middle of friendship and unrequited love. It's a gorgeous and delicately rendered tapestry of desires—and a bracing examination of what happens when feelings break the boxes and labels meant to neatly contain them." —Angela Chen, author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
"Nothing triggers archival fervor quite like unrequited love. For those of us who have ever Googled 'what is love' late into the night, this book is ours. Tree Abraham has managed to do the impossible: transform the excesses of that delirious, excruciating fever state into a true work of art." —Anelise Chen, author of So Many Olympic Exertions
This information about elseship was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tree Abraham is an Ottawa-born, Brooklyn-based writer, art director, and book designer. Her authorship experiments with fragmented essay and mixed media visuals. She is also the author of the creative nonfiction book Cyclettes (2022).
If you liked elseship, try these:
by Bryan Washington
Published 2026
A life-affirming novel of family, mending, and how we learn to love, from the award-winning Bryan Washington.
by Erin Somers
Published 2025
A hilariously acerbic sliding doors novel about a chance meeting between two young parents, both happily married (just not to each other) that sparks a will-they-won't-they romance—perfect for fans of Big Swiss and Acts of Service.
by JoAnne Tompkins
Published 2022
After the shocking death of two teenage boys tears apart a community in the Pacific Northwest, a mysterious pregnant girl emerges out of the woods and into the lives of those same boys' families - a moving and hopeful novel about forgiveness and human connection.
Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
