Love in Exile

Shon Faye can break your heart and change your mind in the same moment. Love In Exile is a parade of these instances, a book that for lovers in this era will be both a comfort and a sword

Torrey Peters

I loved this smart, searching, and moving book. Love in Exile is an exacting and thoughtful exploration of what it is to relate to men, masculinity, power, and gender norms, as a woman, and as a trans woman specifically, Shon Faye's clear-sightedness and compassion, both in respect to others and to herself, is what makes her writing so powerful. Both disarming and self-possessed, this book is suffused with curiosity — and it's one that I found as thought-provoking as I found it helpful

Katherine Angel

Uncommonly wise and honest. Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish

Maggie Nelson

A heartfelt and astute book that encourages us to reconsider our fantasies and assumptions about romantic love. Should be required reading for anyone who wants to join a dating app, love ethically, or experience true partnership with other humans

Melissa Febos

I loved it! I think. Because after Faye's compassionate, wise and often very funny book, I'm rethinking everything I thought I knew about love. An essential read for anyone who has ever loved, lost or been lonely

Juno Dawson

So beautifully written, my heart almost can’t contain it all

Poorna Bell

Reading this made me sit and ruminate on love, and all its squidgy forms, in ways I hadn’t before. Tenderness and honesty lurk on every page. Shon’s thoughts are at once enthralling and confronting

Jodie Harsh

With a very sharp, brave, dialectical brilliance, Shon Faye takes on the insurmountable question of "who is supposed to love me"? This question is answered both personally and collectively in a series of essays that are gripping, self aware, and (if I may be so frank) radically seductive

Brontez Purnell

I feel I've come out of reading this book a different person. Beautiful and funny and unsparing, Shon teaches us so much about what it really means to love, and how that emotion is marked by the world we live in

Annie Lord

The beauty of the writing in Love In Exile verges on the scriptural. It will restore the hope of us pilgrims who have lost love, lost ourselves in love and long for a survivable future

Kuchenga Shenjé

I think Love in Exile is something that is so much better than brave, something that's much harder to achieve - it's honest. Even better, it's consistently honest. Whether Faye is writing about God shamelessly, or shame Godlessly, every chapter left me reflecting deeply on my own experiences of love but even more so, the stories I've told myself about those experiences

Mona Chalabi

An account of how and why we define our own self-worth in terms of love. Faye has a perspective and style that is distinctly her own but offers insight and enlightenment that is appealingly universal

Vogue, 'Best Books of 2025'

A brilliantly perceptive manifesto on love in all its forms

Independent's 'Best books to look out for in 2025'

A lesson in why love is so much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught

Service 95’s ‘Most anticipated releases of 2025’

Teaching us to love without boundaries, this new memoir looks at how relationships can expand far beyond the narrow ideals many of us have been taught to chase

ELLE’s ‘Cult Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2025’

Part memoir, part manifesto, Shon Faye’s second book is a forensic investigation into love: what it means and who it is for… Love in Exile will speak to anyone who has ever felt that this most universal feeling was out of their reach – that they are unworthy, deluded or incapable and reframes what love is

AnOther’s ‘Best Books of 2025’

Faye sets out to deconstruct her topics through thoroughly researched and accessibly delivered political and social theory, providing radical ways of thinking... her discussions are expansive and wholly empathetic...The weaving through of memoir is equally compelling... The greatest strength of Love in Exile, though, is Faye's optimism. She is resolute in her belief that human beings are capable of great compassion, both to each other and ourselves.

Alim Kheraj, The i paper

Much of Faye’s writing is deeply personal, but a political thesis underpins Love in Exile... [it] is sincere in a way that reminds me of bell hooks' 1999 book All About Love... Her writing will shake your illusions about love, but remind you of the value of even attempting it

Kitty Drake, The Guardian

Writing about love is an ancient practice, yet Faye brings a sharp, warm and illuminating analysis to the contemporary state of affairs – with some unexpected diversions, like her relationship with Catholicism… Love in Exile is set to be the must-read book of 2025

Vic Parsons, Gay Times

Part memoir, part political education, Love in Exile explores Faye’s honest sentiments about feeling lonely and unlovable, her addiction to love and alcohol, and where these feelings stem from... intertwined with rich and thoroughly researched chapters about other aspects of love, such as obligatory love through motherhood, religious love, friendship, forgiveness, and so much more.

Annie Lord, AnOther

Love in Exile is a book that gets extremely honest... it mixes memoir with a broader examination of love – romantic, familial, friendship… The book, like Faye in conversation, is intelligent, funny and never obvious in its exploration of its subject

Lladán Hynes, Irish Independent

Seamlessly blending memoir and social theory... Faye examines the elision of love, validation and addiction with such lucidity as to knock the wind out of you

Emma Loffhagen, The Standard

Love in Exile is lyrical and often laugh-out-loud funny... shot through with warmth, solidarity and a kind of expansive, sororal love for the world, it’s a bracing and often sad book – but never a depressing one...

James Greig, Dazed

A deeply personal memoir... the book does not ultimately make for depressing reading. In many ways, it’s a love letter to love – the types of love found in community, among friends, and – if they’re done right – within relationships.

Lottie Elton, Big Issue