Jeanne Thornton

I still need to give this a proper review, especially as it is the book I have most thought about and is by far my most beloved thing I've read all year.

I genuinely find it hard to express just how or why I adore this book so much being a sad, broken Queer disaster who loves nothing more than reading beautiful, ugly, wonderful books about her people.

***

I've given it some time, but I am struggling to write a review for this book because I loved it so very much, but can't exactly out my finger on why. I have been thinking about it so often since and, honestly, I can't wait to read it again. It's just so nihilistic and bleak, but hopeful and real and raw and grimy and hopeless and ugly and beautiful. I just can't get my thoughts together enough to do it justice. I don't think I've ever lived a book so much that I actually found it difficult to talk about.

I will re-read it once I put a tiny dent in my TBR and see how I do then.

...

This book has absolutely shattered me in the best worst, worst best way.

I can't remember a book made me just lose it sobbing this much.

This is probably my favourite book of all time.

I'll hopefully have more words once I have put myself back together.… (meer)

This is a difficult book to review. It’s a novel with a lot of layers. Thornton writes in the author’s note about the act of projection, and particularly the type of mythologizing that happens in fandoms. The novel is very much an exploration of this idea, with The Beach Boys and the mythology surrounding Brian Wilson as the model. It’s essentially a Beach Boys myth retelling with Brian recast as a trans woman. It’s all told through letters written by the MC, Gala (also a trans woman) to the character of Diane, the founder of the Get Happies. Overall, it’s got an uncanny valley quality that seems so real but also not quite right. It makes for an unsettling reading experience in a way that made me question what was real and what was the character projecting. In the end, I found this quite interesting and thought provoking, even if it wasn’t a happy story. I would also say I think knowledge of The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson will add to the experience and add more layers.… (meer)

2021. Gala, a transgender woman, lives in a trailer in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She’s obsessed with a Beach Boys-like band called The Get Happies. She writes the Brian Wilson stand in character, B- a ton of letters in which she morphs into a sort of omniscient narrator who knows everything about his past, his family, his/her innermost feelings. This narrator tells us that he’s really a woman, whose name for herself is Diane. At the height of her career, Diane tries to come out as a woman, but it becomes too hard, so she detransitions. But she’s never able to write music after that. Audacious and as crazy as it sounds, this all really works in context.… (meer)