Starred Review Booklist
"In his stunning first novel, Boast turns the myth of Daphne and Apollo into a modern love story about social anxiety and physical debilitation…Sharply observant, both of the limits of human longing and of the fear of feeling trapped inside one’s body, Boast’s understated tale is at once tragic and enchanting."
The Guardian
"[An] engaging debut…[Daphne] appeals not only to the heart but also to the head."
NewYorker.com
"Boast’s novel is an amiable exploration of how humans might come to manage their raucous hearts."
Natalie Serber
"Boast seems to have captured today’s cultural zeitgeist…Watching Ollie and Daphne fall in love is both sweet and fraught…[Daphne’s] plight is universal; risk losing control over one’s own life by embracing human intimacy, or remain in the safe isolation of a hermetically sealed existence."
San Francisco Chronicle - Chelsea Leu
"An elegant meditation on modern-day emotion. . . . Boast is interested in the ways we handle the unwieldy welter of emotions that defines human existence (“We’re absolutely pickled in it,” Daphne notes), how we protect ourselves from the pain of others and fail to express our own. . . . Even the most hard-hearted reader will find Boast’s deep awe of “what it is to feel” catching."
Antonya Nelson
"Will Boast has written a novel that exquisitely marries ancient mythology and au courant medicine to tell our favorite tale, the love story, with insights both age-old and brand-spanking new. It's a fine, fine ride."
Laura van den Berg
"Richly meditative and quietly suspenseful, Daphne breathes fresh vigor into timeless questions about love and risk—the unknowable cost of fully opening one’s heart to another. Will Boast writes beautifully about life’s daily moral gambles, and Daphne is an outright marvelous debut."
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2017-11-13
Psychology and myth twist into each other in this debut novel about vulnerability and fear.Boast (Epilogue, 2014, etc.) writes about Daphne, who isolates herself from most other people by choice and strict routine. While her mythical namesake turns into a Laurel tree to avoid Apollo's pursuit, this Daphne "explode[s] into lush forest," freezing when she feels anything too intense. Her rare, unnamed condition means she absorbs powerful emotions around her, and her own feelings are paralytic: "I couldn't move at all," she says, recounting her first episode. Doctors postulate that her "immune system [is] blasting away at receptors in that mysterious part of the brain where muscle control, emotion, and sleep intersect." Daphne's adult life becomes about "at least, surviving," avoiding feelings and seizurelike episodes. Romance is dangerous. Even books and movies can send her into a trance. In clipped sentences, Daphne narrates her daily routine: support group; work at a research center that tests medical devices on dogs; public transportation; and isolation. When she meets Ollie, an empathetic could-be suitor, she's forced to confront her own idea that life would be easier "if only we could all stay a mystery to one another." Ollie's attention tests the lengths to which she'll allow herself to get hurt. Boast leads Daphne—and the reader—through many of the Bay Area's corners of art and culture. Daphne's "fluttering and slumping" that result from emotion are one thing, but her real fear? "I'd twisted and twined and bound myself up inside," she says, "to avoid death." "When you insulate yourself against disaster, you're always waiting for it to arrive."Boast's story is rooted in myth. But it's his perceptive take on the risks of emotion that the reader will remember.
