The Body Builders

A March 2026 Reading Is a Lifestyle Subscription Book Pick

For readers of Megan Nolan and Sheila Heti, a mesmerizing Borgesian literary debut about the frayed borders between our bodies and minds.

Ada lives a solitary life. She spends her days in her apartment building’s swimming pool, occasionally visiting with her cousin Francesca. Ada’s parents are recently divorced after her father became a bodybuilder: He spends his days at the gym, warm with human proximity. Her mother spends her days alone.

When Atticus turns up by the pool, Ada immediately feels an intimate connection between them: They share a life, maybe even a consciousness. Little by little, Ada’s estrangement from her familiar reality widens. She worries she may be losing her mind. After her mother entreats Ada to join her on a remote Greek holiday, Ada is jolted out of the physical world and into a new, artificial environment, one that a potentially otherworldly force has designed for her. The Facility makes real Ada’s every wish but hides secrets behind its closed doors and endless hallways. It asks: When a person’s life, in the odd space between mind and body, is inherently one of isolation, are our relationships merely projections of ourselves?

Albertine Clarke transforms the speculative into an entirely singular experience of deep interiority. With precision, subtlety, and confidence The Body Builders lands like a blow, widening a crack that allows us to perceive the world differently than we ever imagined.