Andrea Lawlor

This novel reminded me of two other contemporary novels, [b:Black Wave|32800012|Black Wave|Michelle Tea|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1477665260l/32800012._SY75_.jpg|45065501] by Michelle Tea (who blurbed this novel) and [b:Heartland|34466598|Heartland|Ana Simo|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492481283l/34466598._SX50_.jpg|55586708] by Ana Simo, because all three challenged me in the same way.

All three are written in a careful-breezy style--by that I mean, the writing is quite careful, and in many instances beautiful and poetic, but the voice is crafted to give the impression of near-artlessness.

All three are also about social relationships that aren't within the heteronormative and/or cisgender experience, and as such they occupy a space where relatively few novels live, as yet. Authors writing about the cis-het experience can employ all kinds of shorthand in their writing, it seems to me, because readers are already trained to the 'beats' of cis-het relationships in fiction. When almost every novel you've ever read is about cis/het people, then you develop, as a reader, the experience to anticipate almost every possible outcome in relationships between characters. Because the authors of these three novels are interested in exploring non-normative relationships and characters, though, their novels have a lacy quality to me, where I can't see the pattern in relationships from the beginning, and where I have no expectation of what's going to happen next. I was a little lost, fictionally-speaking. It was kind of wonderful.

Just now this novel is my favorite of the three. I thought it was the best written and the most daring. I recommend all three of them though.… (meer)