PositiveThe Cleveland Review of Books\"Reading The Young Man in the context of Ernaux’s other works can feel disorienting—sometimes even like a betrayal. Where is the seventeen-year-old who was consumed by the older camp counselor’s desire? The university student scrambling to get an illegal abortion? The woman waiting helplessly by the phone for S.’s call? While Ernaux made formal innovations to capture and challenge the lack of agency she experienced in these situations, in The Young Man, Ernaux makes the choices—and often seems to revel in her newfound power ... Ernaux seems not to be driven by passion or devotion, but by a kind of artistic curiosity ... perhaps The Young Man shows us these understandings of life are not mutually exclusive. After we peel back the narratives that we spin subconsciously, those stories that are shaped by external forces—whether capricious lovers or restrictive laws—maybe we are free to craft new ones, to purposefully make meaning for ourselves out of the things that happen to us and the things that we do.\
