Maisie is comfortable taking her clothes off in a room full of people holding pencils. Feeling secure in a relationship is considerably harder. I liked that contradiction in Emily Lighezzolo’s Life Drawing, because it gives us a woman whose apparent confidence tells us very little about how she feels about herself.
Maisie and Charlie meet as university students in Brisbane, where she models for a life-drawing class and he's one of the artists. They subsequently become housemates, bringing their attraction into the familiar chaos of shared kitchens, parties and conversations conducted by people who have strong opinions and rather less experience. Having everyone under one roof certainly gives those opinions somewhere to go.
Their relationship unfolds across twenty years. There's attraction, separation, renewed connection and the gradual accumulation of responsibilities. I enjoyed the space this gives their story. We get to see what survives beyond the circumstances that first brought them together, and how easily old insecurities can find their way into an apparently different life.
Maisie can be frustrating. She wants affection, seeks reassurance and then makes closeness difficult. I found her understandable even when I wanted to argue with her. Her relationship with her body is tangled up with attention, approval and a fear that her desirability determines how much she matters. That's an exhausting foundation on which to build a sense of self, particularly when she's also trying to assert her independence.
The distinction between choosing to be seen and losing control over an image is especially well handled. Modelling gives Maisie a degree of authority over the situation. Images shared without her consent carry an entirely different weight. The physical exposure might appear similar to an observer, but her experience depends on who made the decision and whether her wishes counted. Lighezzolo gives that difference consequences within Maisie’s life.
Charlie’s artistic interest adds another complication. His attention to her body can be affectionate and admiring, but I kept wondering how much understanding comes with that attention. Being closely observed might feel wonderful when you want to be desired. It can become uncomfortable when you want someone to understand something you can't explain through your appearance.
I did occasionally want a fuller sense of Maisie in the earlier sections. Charlie’s perspective occupies substantial space, and her behaviour sometimes feels easier to observe than to understand from within. Given how much depends on her experience, that distance matters. Her later emotional life feels more convincing, particularly when motherhood brings changes she can't manage through the familiar reassurance of being wanted.
Those passages were among the strongest for me. Pregnancy, childbirth and the demands that follow can alter a woman’s relationship with her body very quickly. Maisie’s distress gives room to feelings that can be difficult to admit, including grief for a previous version of herself. I appreciated the seriousness with which that's treated. There's already enough pressure on women to produce an acceptable account of motherhood.
The Brisbane setting also gives the book a welcome sense of familiarity, while the share-house conversations reveal the gap between having a position on something and knowing how to live by it. Maisie and Charlie have plenty to say. Their lives give them opportunities to reconsider.
I found Life Drawing intelligent, engaging and emotionally persuasive, with a few reservations about the balance of its perspectives. Lighezzolo allows attraction to become complicated by time and experience, and gives bodily insecurity a place within an adult relationship without making it seem trivial. I finished thinking about how difficult it must be to trust someone’s love when you've spent years treating your own appearance as the evidence that you deserve it.
🎨 Read this if you enjoy stories about art and relationships
🏡 University friendships and share-house life
🕰️ A love story spanning two decades
🪞 Body image and the desire to feel accepted
💞 Complicated love and second chances
⚠️ Contains sexual content, non-consensual image sharing and postpartum depression.
Book Details
Life Drawing by Emily Lighezzolo
Paperback ISBN
978-0702270987 — University of Queensland Press Australian trade paperback published on 3 March 2026.
Hardcover ISBN
No hardcover edition or ISBN could be verified.
eBook ISBN
978-0702272578 — University of Queensland Press EPUB edition published on 3 March 2026.
Audiobook ISBN
978-1004242733 — Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd unabridged digital audiobook published on 6 March 2026.
Genre
Contemporary Fiction; Australian Fiction; Literary Fiction; Romance; Family Drama.
Subgenre
Contemporary Australian Literary Fiction; Literary Love Story; Coming-of-Age Fiction; Domestic Fiction. These descriptive classifications reflect the novel’s setting and subject matter.
Tropes / Literary Threads
Artist and muse; university share house; attraction between housemates; separation and reunion; complicated relationships; bodily autonomy; body image; male gaze; sexual agency; non-consensual image sharing; motherhood; postpartum depression
Publisher
University of Queensland Press — paperback and eBook.
Series
Standalone novel; no series designation is listed.
Formats Available
Trade paperback; eBook; unabridged digital audiobook.
Audiobook Narrator
Ebony Nave.
Audiobook Length
7 hours and 59 minutes — unabridged English-language recording.
Original Release Date
3 March 2026 — first publication by University of Queensland Press.
Australian Release Date
3 March 2026 for the paperback and eBook.
Page Count
352 pages — paperback ISBN 978-0702270987.
Where to Buy Life Drawing by Emily Lighezzolo
📚 Amazon
Affiliate Disclosure
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Danielle Robinson is a literary critic and writer whose work explores literature through the
lens of atmosphere, memory, culture, and
emotional experience.
Holding a double degree in philosophy and theology, she combines academic insight with a deeply refined aesthetic sensibility shaped by more than three decades working across the creative industries as an internationally published, multi-award-winning makeup artist, fashion stylist, and interior stager.
She reads widely and rigorously, reading and reviewing more than 200 books each year as both an ARC reader and commissioned critic. Through Silk & Sentences, Danielle approaches literature as something immersive and lived with — not simply stories to consume, but works that shape the way we think, feel, and move through the world.
She writes from her semi-rural Queensland home, where she lives with Alex, her husband of 33 years, their dogs Oscar and Paige, and an ever-growing library of books.
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