A fan of Sally Rooney’s debut Conversations with Friends? Yearning for a new novel that brims with blunt yet descriptive prose? If you are looking for first-person narration by complex female characters navigating unconventional relationship formats, their bodies, queerness, and mental health, why not take a narrative journey to the Swiss Alps? The feminist novel Woman, Idle, written by Swiss German author Laura Vogt and translated by Caroline Waight in 2025, might just be what you are looking for.

Romi is tentatively looking forward to going to Berlin with her oldest friend Nora and Nora’s friend Szibilla, but just before they are meant to set off, Romi and Szibilla receive a phone-call from Nora’s estranged mother, telling them that her daughter is ill and at her childhood home in the Rhine Valley. She refuses to give them more details, so Romi and Szibilla decide to investigate, staying at an outdated Spa hotel near the house. It turns out Nora – our titular idle woman – isn’t suffering from a physical ailment but is isolating herself and refusing to speak to anyone.

All three women are currently navigating changing relationships in the novel, raising the question of how our relationships shape our lives. Nora recently left her drug-dealing boyfriend, leaving her a single parent to her toddler; Romi is pregnant with her second child, yet has fallen in love with another man and is attempting an open marriage; Szibilla is an anti-natalist who suffered from a psychotic break after leaving her abuse relationship, rendering her cynical to romance, yet edges towards an affair with the spa’s massage therapist.

All three women are also engaged in battle with their bodies and Vogt is refreshingly open when it comes to depicting these battles. From Szibilla’s endometriotic period and Romi’s severe pregnancy symptoms, to Nora’s mysterious ailment that renders her silent and immobilised in bed. In her heavily embodied novel, Vogt doesn’t shy away from visceral imagery; one particularly striking moment sees Szibilla’s menstrual cup overflow on the massage table.

Nor does Vogt hesitate from having her characters discuss typically taboo topics, so that the English translation smoothly fits into Heloise Press’ catalogue of politically engaged prose written by women. From women’s bodily and personal autonomy, to anti-natalism, non-monogamy, climate change, and Switzerland’s harsh immigration policies, the core of the novel consists of discussions, through which complex and – if I’m honest – often unlikeable female characters emerge. This can sometimes become repetitive, with Romi and Szibilla, lacking their anchor point in Nora, getting stuck in circular discussions, often revolving around Szibilla’s harsh views on Romi’s life choices. Yet these conversations hint at the characters’ vulnerabilities and the uncertainty permeating the narrative.  

Although our three protagonists live different lives and share often opposing viewpoints, they deeply care about each other. While when it comes to the women’s differences, Vogt falls into the trap of telling rather than showing, the women’s care for each other is depicted much more thoughtfully. This starts with Romi and Szibilla coming to the Rhine Valley to check in on Nora and leads to the harsh Szibilla showing her tenderness in brusque offerings of acts of service, driving Romi through the countryside to find an optician to get her new contact lenses on a bank holiday in one memorable scene. This care and tenderness might be slow to penetrate the novel, but when it does the reader cannot help but empathise with these complex, layered women trying to make sense of their lives in a patriarchal world.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes