Love/Aggression

by June Martin

Best friends Lily and Zoe fight, separate, reunite, and repeat, each time deepening the belief that the other is the source of their problems. Once Lily, a struggling tattoo apprentice, is exiled from their shared house, she bounces from an artist's fixer-upper, to a cult leader with a harem of subs, to a house shared with the goddess of transfemininity. Meanwhile, rising movie star Zoe becomes more cutthroat by the day in her relentless quest for fame. If Lily can't give up her desire for control, if Zoe can't lay aside her cruelty and ego, they'll never escape their intolerable places in the world. Traversing art, domination, sex, and shape-shifting houses, Love/Aggression is a novel about the indignity of depending on other people, and the terrible cost of trying not to.

Genres: Queer, Fiction, Transgender, LGBT

282 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 8, 2024

Reviews

[Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fanlove/fangression

The only way to review this book is through fanfiction. The task is so big I must cut it in half, that it may be a tattoo around the midbody where our survival line runs. "The problem is that people act in ways they're not supposed to—" That is the midpoint of the book. A coffeeshop suddenly opens. Take a sip, the shop won't last forever. This book is a murder and I wish it were my idea. I can say that because I am a gay man.

I wrote more on Medium, then heard a couple days later that this book has won Transfeminine Review's Best Debut Author of 2024!

[May · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really hard to review Love/Aggression without spoiling so much of what makes it incredible. At the heart of this bizarre, fragmented, surreal world is an incredibly human story about our relationships with others. One of the most inventive pieces of trans literature I've ever read; I don't want to say more for fear of spoilers, this is absolutely worth a read.

[Clarissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

June Martin creates a transcendent world of room mates pushed to the extremes and with that seemingly simple premise produces an incredible book. I can't recommend it enough, it is absolutely everything.
The two housemates fall out and, woven against recognisable USA life, hopes and dreams, absurd fantastical situations ensue. Like one of the art pieces in the story, everything is deliberately broken and then put together in a manner where the familiarity heightens and emphasises how odd, painful and necessary human relationships can be.
It's an awe inspiring achievement and a unique literary novel that cannot be explained, it needs to be experienced.

[Dale Stromberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This madcap novel is such a sugar-rush of situational absurdity, wicked satire, hallucinatory imagery, and maximally burlesque characters that it can be easy to overlook just how meticulously marshalled and deployed its symbols and images are. The novel ultimately forms itself into a prismatic rumination on the bodies which house us and the homes we seek, even as it keeps us merrily entertained along the way.

If you’re interested, I’ve reviewed the book at much greater length on Medium (here is an un-paywalled link).

[Harley Lalonde · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favs!!! Weird, and magical, and mysterious. The relationship between the main girls was great, and i really liked the supporting characters. What a weird, but great book!

[Neha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martin’s prose is propulsive almost to the point of becoming addictive. I love love love stories told from multiple POVs, especially when those POVs have different tellings of the same events, and especially when those POVs are locked in a constant push/pull of love/aggression (hey, that’s the title of the book)! Each character that graces these pages, for no matter long, is fully realized. My only issue was as the plot twisted into some kind of allegory, a lot of the groundwork done early in the book kind of awkwardly set into layers (some even forgotten completely), so the ending didn’t feel completely satisfying. Otherwise, it’s a great read, highly recommend.

[Rachel Ashera Rosen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is about two trans women, Zoe and Lily, who were friends once but that label is grandfathered in, as their lives take separate trajectories. Zoe is a rising film star; Lily is a tattoo artist. They live together but that living situation becomes untenable, mainly because Zoe is one of the most awful characters I've encountered in fiction lately. Zoe forces Lily out, and Lily moves from one precarious living situation to the next, ending up at her artist girlfriend's place, a cult, and eventually, a sentient house that knows the needs of its residents.

The joys of this book are evenly between watching Zoe be as awful as possible and Lily's magic realist journey through shifting liminal spaces. It's wildly inventive and beautifully written. It's also very true to like. Every queer community I know, where a personality conflict is the difference between a safe and nurturing home and living in a park out of your duffel bag.

[Chris · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

Love/Aggression is a fascinating story, it deals with the complexion of transfeminine relationality, often in fraught conditions. The two main protagonists of the book experience rivalry, complicated sexualities and marginalization while trying to survive. What I especially liked about this book is how it navigates this complexity in the two parallel stories it tells. At the end of it, I noted that the story sometimes felt a little bit messy though some of the horror/fantasy elements make the story frightening and more interesting overall.

[Venneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ended up mainlining the back half of this over the space of a morning because I wanted to see how the hell this was going to end. We have two friends who have the most extreme of love hate relationships going on and end up dragging the people around them into it (who also happen to be a cult leader, various Hollywood fixtures, tattoo artists, and assorted others), played out against one of their attempts to rise to stardom as a trans actress. Was not expecting the cannibalism, it was a fantastic surprise. Highly recommended.

[Roxy Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made me cry. 6 stars.

[Samrat · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible, spiralling, worth reading and rereading.

[Nick :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and remarkable if not always the most engaging to follow. The beautiful prose and vibrant world kept me reading even when the plot occasionally slowed down.

[Paige Genest · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

Easily most transphobic book I've ever read (complimentary). The perfect balance of insane/evil and funny/touching, but maybe just a little too absurd at times. Probably gonna be one of those great books I can't recommend to anyone in good conscience.

[David Brehmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

June Martin’s LOVE/AGGRESSION is an immersive reading experience, part morality tale, part Boots Rileyian surrealism, but always centered firmly on the humanity of its cast of fascinating characters. Nearly all are trans or queer or nonbinary in some form or another but that has very little to do with the story or their lives. This is a world of people who have already accepted who they are and found their community of relatively like-minded others but who still are trying to figure out the rest of life. Less who am I and more what now. (Which incidentally is why it is so important to have gender affirming care and support, because life is difficult enough without having to go around trying to prove you’re a valid human exactly as your are) I mention Boots Riley and not another author because Martin’s visual language is so boldly striking reading her surrealist passages seems as vivid as watching a movie. They are also often packed with socially conscious humor and critical, though ultimately loving, commentary. She has created a jarring world filled with loud, brazen, unapologetic misfits; yet for all its flamboyant confidence LOVE/AGGRESSION has some quietly important things to say about observing the world around you and allowing it to come as it will. Rendered in rich, efficient prose and packed with thoughtful, human detail, it is a deeply engrossing, insightfully surprising, and intimately rewarding read.

[I. Merey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovers, backstabbers, cultleaders, twinks and bears and insecure baby transes and adulating, manic agents swirl in the peripheries of the kaleidoscope Martin twists this way and that to create ever new, outrageous patterns with the shards of Zoe and Lily's disintegrating relationship.

Great books exist on multiple levels--anyone can read and enjoy LOVE/AGGRESSION, but you will get an entire shape-shifting floor to yourself in this book, as a trans and/or queer reader. This is a take-no-priz'ners dive into the nuances and idiosyncrasies of queer community--navigating emotional needs, stagnation, ambition, frustration, and mutating expectations. The story follows trans women Zoe and Lily, who were the best friends ever until the day came when they were terrifically NOT. Lily just wants to find a quiet place to rest her head, and Zoe won't stop until she's the baddest bitch in the World. What will remain once the ashes settle?

Martin's ability to capture character is top-notch. Parody-of-herself Zoe steals the novel's stage in a way she can never manage to do in her actual acting gigs---but Martin does wonderful justice to all of her characters. Understated Lily's drifty sadness--Elena is the person you want to get stuck on a deserted island with--Nate is a fuckn hoot and the book is worth reading for him alone--CALAMITY?!--Dicks!!!! The shallow, carefully manicured masculinity of Adam and Tevin.

The characters occupy some oddly comforting space between parody, sympathy, and embarrassing realness, richocheting through a Pittsburgian pinball machine that is neither reality nor make-believe. A playfully bizarro character study and a literary snapshot of a certain queer zeitgeist.

I'd love to see this made into a movie!

[Zilla Novikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes a person is a friend, sometimes they're the daughter of a cult leader, sometimes they're the ideal of femininity, sitting in a room daintily eating estrogen pills. But would the ideal of femininity make a very good roommate? Worse, imagine living with someone who wants to be the ideal of feminity but is at best a movie star with a good pout.

When Elena's mirror shards reflect her paintings, the only face shown clearly is the portrait Zoe accidentally smeared the paint on. I'm not certain I'm making sense, but you know what I mean.

If you've ever read a postmodern novel and thought, that was cool but what if instead of cis masculinity this book was about trans femininity, this is the book for you.

[E.M. White · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a piece of sharp, genuinely witty narration and an exercise in writing characters that are compelling regardless of how lovable or sympathetic they are. The plot is a journey that seems to take quite a few detours, but by the end all the important bits—character motivations, flaws and their fruits—came together and saw a better resolution than I could've guessed. The surrealist elements in what might otherwise be called lit-fic also mesh nicely with the main characters' personalities and their journeys. On top of all of that, June Martin's skills as a keen observer of human experience and a painter of character portraits also shine through here.

[Jun Nozaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love/Aggression was an unexpectedly weird but enthralling story about two roommates who have a nasty falling out. While the first pages start out as one might expect for such a story, Martin quickly establishes that there will be delightful weirdness up ahead. Each chapter is a quick, snackable read, but I was not able to put the book down for long, as Martin's immaculate pacing of the story kept me hungering to find out what happens next.

[Connie T · Rating 5 out of 5]

What does it mean to belong somewhere as a trans woman? Two friends turned rivals travel through surreal apartments, jobs, parties, lovers and acquaintances looking for that ever elusive feeling of being seen and accepted.

This book is full playful imagery mixed in with profound insight making it a breeze to read.

[priya reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5 rounded up) average roommate situation. that ending was bonkers but narratively satisfying. loved the settings of the coffee shop and the house in the last third. wish there was more about lily’s tattooing as so much of zoe’s arc revolves around her acting career and that was a little more compelling to me than lily’s arc around her relationships

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

started this in september while sitting on the beach and finished it over the past week on a plane. the beginning was interesting enough but only when i picked it back up did i get super invested. the breakdown of zoe and lily's relationship is so compelling and i think the surrealism really worked. very strong.

[Kevin Xie · Rating 5 out of 5]

six stars.

as if conjuring ancient legends, summoning the spirits of enraptured audiences huddled around the hearth, a rhythm which rises from deep within our shared human subconscious

and justice with a truth that resonates in your bones and deep in your gut, but that is so disastrous to your heart; appalling to your mind and all the parts of you that know any better

[Cara Esten · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible book about what it's like being surrounded by gay weirdos all the time with an ending befitting a JRPG (just read it). One of the best trans lit books out there, I think. Even though I'm a little biased.

[Jeanne Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid banger. Mysterious and magical around the edges in all good ways, about impossible and messy trans friendships, clout gaps, eating estrogen forever, the picaresque of apartment finding. June is great and you should get in on her whole literary deal now please go ahead!

[Michael Howley · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favorite things in the book world is how the books authors gush about and the ones they write are often totally orthogonal to each other. June loves boring, bleak, weird books? Well this one is weird but everything else is buckle-up mode.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely NOT the lighthearted romp about transfem companionship that I was expecting, and it was, well, quite a bit bloodier than I'd prefer, among other things. But that's more of a "me problem" rather than a problem with the book I suppose...

[Bhagyashree Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the novel and how it stirred my emotions.tge plot was curated well. I give it a 4 stars because i felt it became a bit too toxic

[Eve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light 4

[Chris H · Rating 4 out of 5]

very cool! zoe is so satisfyingly fucked up. great way to end it. sometimes id zone out on lily chapters but i think thats bc of my brain more than anything

[Poprock Pig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this weird WEIRD book, it hits the core of the queer experience for me while also being enthrallingly bizarre.

The goddess of trans-femininity is a particular standout. <3