SWIM PRESS & REVIEWS
GQ Magazine
“Geoff Rickly is a nice guy. When we meet at his favorite local coffee shop in Brooklyn, the influential frontman of the band Thursday offers to get my cold brew, compliments a stranger on their Thom Browne suit, and even says some nice things about work of mine that he’s read (which never happens). He is so nice that I tell him so,…”
Variety
“Geoff Rickly is an artist who is constantly expressing himself. He rose to fame in his early 20s as the singer of post-hardcore band Thursday, and his energetic stage presence brought the quintet a wave of buzz as both intellectual rockers and an essential live act…
But Rickly’s newest project is a novel with plenty of grounding in the real world. “Someone Who Isn’t Me,” out today from Rose Books, is an autofiction dive into his struggles with heroin and treatment, and his deconstruction of self along the way.”
ROCK SOUND
“Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly is so self-deprecating that it could almost be annoying if it wasn’t so clear that he really believes it. When I talk to him, it’s the day of the release of his first novel, ‘Someone Who Isn’t Me’. It’s been devoured by readers, sits at a rare 4.91 stars on Goodreads, and Rickly has sold out events, appeared on podcasts, and had his first literary endeavour praised by people who have never even heard ‘Full Collapse’. Despite that, he talks like he’s on the lam, waiting to be caught out as a fraud…”
“As great of a lead singer and lyricist Geoff Rickly is, he is arguably a more talented writer on this loosely-based work of fiction that feels as raw as its likely intended to be.”
Adam Grundy, chorus.fm
“It's rightly considered a classic of its era, and it crystallized Rickly as — no hyperbole, just fact — one of the most poetic, impactful and inspirational voices of his generation.”
Jason Heller, NPR
“It’s hard to not be jealous of Geoff Rickly, frontman of the band Thursday. When a person is brilliant at two different artforms, it feels unfair.”
Madeline Howard, Bomb Magazine
“That he captured it – all of it – so well in this wonderfully written book – think John Fante, Jack Kerouac, Denis Johnson, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac – shows that he’s much more than Geoff from Thursday and No Devotion. He is a true, bona fide literary talent who can stand proudly alongside any of those giants.”
Mischa Pearlman, Kerrang!
“Someone Who Isn't Me is a massive, blaring achievement—a seamless rendering of what it is to be dissected, to answer for the impulses, dreams, and wishes of your several past selves. This book is simultaneously generously populated and deeply intimate, a tight needle to thread, though it is done beautifully.”
Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us
Good Reads — Read SWIM Reviews From Readers & Fans
“If you’re not already familiar with Geoff/his band Thursday or even emo, don’t let that hold you back. It might even enhance the experience, in some ways. This book is so enveloping and trippy and I was truly lost in it.”
— Chris Payne
“As edifying as this story is in terms of addiction and recovery, what struck me the most is that a deep involvement in art of any kind, in creating or playing music, brings about an ecstasy. After such ecstasy one will do almost anything to get back to that state. Some become addicted to drugs and it is all downhill from there. Some can come back.”
— Judy
“Taking inspiration from Dante's Inferno, this journey through experimental drug rehabilitation becomes almost too vivid, but skirts that fine line perfectly, ultimately delivering catharsis in just the right dose. Never holding back, he relives numerous unsavory memories in unflinching detail, but also stops to convey the beauty he observes, capturing those stored moments that make his survival seem all the more worth fighting for.”