This study guide was created using the following version of this book: Lozano, Brenda. Loop. Translated by Annie McDermott. Charco Press. 2019.

Loop is a novella about an unnamed woman who is waiting for her boyfriend Jonás to return from a trip. Jonás has traveled from Mexico to Spain following the death of his mother. As the narrator thinks about her relationship with Jonás, she longs for his return.

The narrator writes all sorts of things in a notebook as she contemplates her life and the world around her, including a dwarf that she sees regularly on the street. The narrator interacts with friends and thinks about music, the sea, and the lines on the page. She compares those lines to other lines around her and how she interacts with them.

Since the narrator is in a perpetual state of waiting, every place she goes begins to feel like different waiting rooms. She travels to different parts of Mexico as well as to Chicago. She goes to dinner parties, book fairs, and stationery shops. The narrator waits in lines and observes people around her. She thinks about who she is and what the objects around her mean to her. The narrator constantly wonders whether the stairs are going up or down, leaving her in perpetual limbo.

The narrator compares herself to Penelope in The Odyssey. She also makes literary allusions to Waiting for Godot, Kafka, and the Proust Questionnaire as she longs for Jonás. The narrator’s journey is a literary stream of consciousness of the narrator trying to understand her place without Jonás.

While in an airport, the narrator becomes concerned with her own mother dying. The narrator often thinks about transforming into a bird. While Jonás is away, the narrator is concerned with transformation and how Jonás's return may impact their relationship.

The narrator tries to understand the difference in emotions between men and women. The narrator looks to the happy ending in The Odyssey as a goal for Jonás ’s return. She spends Christmas without Jonás and travels through different parks in the city. She considers her notebook as a companion and debates her feelings about love.

At the beach, the narrator has a cathartic conversation with her brother. She contemplates the sea and again thinks of how she is like Penelope waiting for her Odysseus. At a dinner party, the narrator is struck by visiting a place that conjures a childhood memory. Catalina, the woman hosting the dinner party, advises the narrator to be cautious about who the narrator will be to Jonás when he returns. The narrator continues to contemplate her relationship with Jonás, but she is sure that Jonás will return.

The narrator knows she loves Jonás and wants him to return. She recognizes the ways in which she is changing and must come to understand that Jonás is also coming to terms with how he is changing.

The novella ends as Jonás is returning; however, it does reveal Jonás ’s actual return. The narrator concludes her thoughts as a way of understanding her own transformation while Jonás has been away.