See Right Through Me is perhaps the most oddly sweet, vulnerable and romantic lesbian fiction I think I have ever been lucky enough to read. It's lovely (boy, is it!) largely because, like other gifted novelists in her genre, L.T. Smith knows being gay is about far more than sex, and that knowledge is an inherent, beautiful, beautiful part of See Right Through Me, where two slightly broken women slowly, but surely fall in love way before they ever fall into bed.

There is so much reality in the trials and tribulations of Gemma and Maria's relationship: from the painfully awkward (and, believe me, they _are_ painfully awkward) moments of disbelief on each woman's part (that the other one could actually like her) to the amazingly tender and touching love scenes that make the ones in almost every other lesfic title seem biologically detached or just plain crass.

Though Gemma (or, as Maria lovingly calls her, "Gem") may frequently meander off on goofy tangents and philosophize just a tad too much sometimes, it's somehow very endearing and often wise. A lot of lines in See Right Through Me I just had to jot down:

"Time always lasts longer when you're breaking apart, doesn't it?" (That's for sure!)

"What's the point in dissecting stupidity?" (I know, right?)

"It's okay to fight for the one you love, but when she doesn't love you back-when she loves someone else-isn't that the time to let go and let her live her life?" (This applies to the novel's unofficial villain, who just doesn't know when to let go, but it's still great advice, don't you think?)

Gemma's self-doubt and clumsiness could be a turn-off in a less capable writer's hands, but L.T. Smith makes her weaknesses somehow lovable and how can you possibly find fault with a woman who says to her audience (I love it when narrators talk to their readers!): "I didn't mind waiting; I would wait for her as long as she wanted me to...I knew from the very pit of my stomach that this woman was the one I had been waiting for my whole life."

Maybe it's the sappy romantic in me, but this is the kind of stuff that makes for a good, sincere and sigh-inducing love story. My only complaint about See Right Through Me is the one any of us have whenever we finish a really, really good book: how can the next one we pick up and read possibly compare? :) ( )