Despite the title, I somehow did not expect to read a book dealing with a murder of a woman, not to mention a capture of a culprit. For me, the story of a 72-year-old widow who moved to a small town of Levant, New England, and lives in a modest cabin with a dog, Charlie, whom she gave a forever home, is a story of loneliness and bitterness she suffered in her life. The note found during one of the walks with Charlie becomes the opening to her speculations on whether there wasreally a murder comm...

I have to be honest here and admit that I just didn't get this book. Ottessa Moshfegh is so insanely talented as a writer but this book was utterly pointless. We have a 72 year old woman (a widow) that lives in almost complete solitude with her dog, Charlie, in a cabin on a lake. While out walking she finds a note: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." However, there is no body and Vesta becomes completely obsessed in solving the myste...

"Things might be theoretical, that was true. I may be imagining it all, but it still hurt. It was still sad to lose someone you loved."Vesta is a 72 year old, dog-owning loner. She's recently moved cross-country after the death of her husband. One day on a walk in the woods she stumbles upon a note: "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body."Except, there is no dead body present. With this incident, Vesta sets out on a murder mystery, more met...

Oh, the terrible wonders of the mind...⁣⁣⁣⁣Death in Her Hands is a dark & layered novel that lulls the reader into the crumbling psyche of an incredibly lonely & depressed protagonist, desperately trying to free her mind & expunge the painful memories that she tries to bury within a labyrinth of half-truths & alternate history. She is a woman powerless over her mind yet dependent on it to conjure a reality she can believe in; that she can survive in. At length, she reflects on a life of unfulfil...

Death in Her Hands begins intriguingly, when a woman finds a note in the woods: Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.But there’s no body, just the note, weighted down with little rocks. Vesta—the 72-year-old widow who discovered it—fancies herself a sleuth and becomes obsessed with Magda but her ‘investigation’ resembles a creative writing exercise: she simply invents the suspects and circumstances leading to Magda’s death. Vesta admit

I think I expected too much, given all the publicity, from “Death in Her Hands” by Ottessa Moshfegh. This is not a novel for just anyone. One must enjoy quiet contemplation of a woman slowly losing her grip on reality.The story begins when Vesta, our protagonist, finds a note in the woods while walking her beloved dog. The note reads “Her name was Magna. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”. There is no body, nothing rotting, no evidence of foul play. If I s...

Hello??? I think this is my new favorite Moshfegh. Jesus Christ. I love her. I stan her. I worship the ground that she walks on. Moshfegh marry me. I love you.To be completely frank, I think I have no idea what I just read. There is one thing I know for sure: this book was an unreliable narrator at its finest, and god do I love an unreliable narrator. We center around a 72-year old woman named Vesta Gul who finds a mysterious note, saying, “Her name was Magda. No one will ever know who killed he...

Ottessa Moshfegh has written a twisted, genre-bending detective story: Her protagonist Vesta Gul is a 72-year-old widow who lives in a remote former girl scout camp with her dog Charlie. But mind you, Vesta is no Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher; rather, it becomes very clear early on that there is something psychologically wrong with this lonely female narrator who tells us that she found a mysterious slip of paper in the woods with the words scribbled on it: "Here name was Magda. Nobody will ev...

While the concept of this story sounded right up my alley, it left much to be desired because the entire novel– that I sped through because it is gripping despite its lack of plot– is simply Vesta’s stream of consciousness as she ponders who Magda was, who killed her, what her past was like, etc. From the moment Vesta finds this note, there is no actual progression of the plot from there, onwards. There is no real mystery or overlying darkness to this story that is gripping but makes one wonder

Seventy two year old widowed Vesta Gul is out walking her dog Charlie in Levant, New England when she finds a curious note on the ground held down by little black rocks. It says ‘Her name is Magda. No one will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body’. Who wrote the note? Who is Magda? Vesta ponders on the conundrum and tries to solve it. First of all, this is a very well written story with good descriptions and Vesta’s isolation in the woods in a dilapidated cabin are well

It's a rather dark, damning way to begin a story: the pronouncement of a mystery whose investigation is futile. Nobody will ever know who killed her. The story is over just as it's begun. The note certainly didn't promise any happy ending. So, what's with the synchronicities between this and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead? Both feature a reclusive old woman living in the woods; give prime significance to a dog; riff on the murder mystery genre; use Blake (albeit in different ways)

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this novel.Ottessa Moshfegh novels all seems quite different to each other and this is no exception. While I enjoy Moshfegh’s writing style and flew through this book, overall I neither hated it or loved it. The novel consists of a rambling stream of consciousness of the unreliable protagonist and her wild imagination. I have to admit that I was sort of waiting for this to stop and something more concrete to emerge which it didn’t quite.

★★ /5It was not for me, but interesting enough to keep me reading. It was an interesting character study, but being in her head all the time was a little bit too much. Also, it was a little bit confusing and hard to keep track of what was happening.