Cocozza's debut novel is a daring look at how loneliness pervades our lives. Throughout the pages, a deeply unsettling narrative about love, loss and madness enfolds as a woman befriends a fox and leaves her humanity behind. The writing is contemporary and beautiful, with rich descriptions of colour drawing parallels between man and the natural world. Absurd, but relatable, you will be left second guessing everything you've just read. No doubt, this is a book I will read again!

I found How To Be Human a difficult read, in no way down to the book itself but the fear I felt in what may happen to Mary and in particular Fox

A brilliant first novel from yet another young, bright female writer- is it just me or are all the most creative and imaginative writers at the moment all women? Sally Rooney, Zoe Gilbert, Samantha Harvey, Sara Baume, Elizabeth Winthrop (to name but a few). This book could also be titled, How Difficult it is To Be Human or even How Easy it is To Lose Our Humanity. Mentioning Sara Baume,, this book reminded me a lot of Spill Simmer Falter Wither (another excellent book). I think humanity is the force behind this book- how as humans we can be so disconnected from nature around us and our own nature, locked inside boxes, keeping us locked up- our emotions, problems, secrets, thinking we are safe from the dangers outside, when the real danger can be locked in with us, ourselves. But then projecting this fear, anxiety, hatred onto the remaining vestiges of 'wild' around us- in this case a solitary fox living in a small area of scrub on the edge of suburbia. But when our lives spill out of our homes and our problems- our break ups, rows and illnesses are viewed by family, friends and neighbours, we also can soon become the 'problem'. How to be Human shines its light into this darkness, or rather is seen through the eyes of the fox who is also trying to work out why we struggle to live with each other (especially when we seem to 'own' it all). Through his eyes, Mary whose relationship with Mark has ended badly, we glimpse some of the absurdity of what it is to be human and how she struggles to regain her own sense of humanity. Like all first time novelists, it has that extra subversiveness of not playing by the rules that established writers tend to follow and as much as I enjoyed her debut and would definitely recommend it, I know she will write something with more accomplishment and I am looking forward to it.