As I read the first sentence of this book a small ball of tension formed inside my chest, a ball that would not go away until I set the book aside and went about the rest of my day. Even thinking of reading the book ("Maybe I'll go to the coffeeshop") caused the tension ball to form and harden. I don't know why I experienced this book so extremely and so physically. Maybe it's the fact that I knew there would be violence - it says so on the book jacket - and waiting for its appearance on the page was stressing me out. Maybe it's because I knew this book would have LGBTQ themes, and I was afraid of whether or not that would be attached to the promised violence. I just don't know. In any case, this book created the bizarre situation where I needed to read the book, ate it up, could not put it down, while at the same time experiencing very real and extreme levels of stress every time I touched the cover.

Okay, enough about all that, the main issue is: was it a good book, or not? Friends, it was a fantastic book. ( )

Wow! This novel goes places that I wasn’t expecting. It defies genres and categorization. The ways in which queerness is expressed are beautiful. McKenzie writes characters who find freedom in various, complex, and emotional ways. My expectations of what this novel was were constantly changing, but with each twist I was more intrigued at how things would end up. This is a novel of pain, healing, self-discovery, and being yourself at all costs ( )

Stop whatever you are doing (unless you are reading this book) and pick up this book! ( )