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Una vida buscando
Como algo que el mar devuelve a la orilla, Rothko Taylor ha regresado a su ciudad natal. Han pasado quince años desde que la dejó atrás y quizás, piensa, debería haber comenzado de nuevo en algún lugar donde nadie supiera su nombre.
Aquí el pasado avanza hacia elle a toda velocidad: los chicos que patinan por la calle principal y le devuelven a su adolescencia; los bancos astillados frente al mar donde su madre, Meg, apuraba las latas; la zona acomodada donde su padre, Ezra, intentó y no logró construir un hogar feliz. Y el bloque de Dionne. Dionne, hermosa y extraordinaria, la única persona que alguna vez le miró y vio lo que había en su interior.
Entonces, abrumade y con miedo, se hundió bajo la superficie, en el caos. Pero logró salir con vida. Y esta vez, Rothko está decidide a que las cosas sean distintas.
Diez años después de su última novela, Kae Tempest regresa con una conmovedora historia sobre la familia y el perdón; la redención y la expiación; el deseo y el abandono; la identidad y la comunidad. Sobre aquello que buscamos cuando nos escondemos y lo que puede encontrarnos, si nos atrevemos a dejarnos ver.
Aquí el pasado avanza hacia elle a toda velocidad: los chicos que patinan por la calle principal y le devuelven a su adolescencia; los bancos astillados frente al mar donde su madre, Meg, apuraba las latas; la zona acomodada donde su padre, Ezra, intentó y no logró construir un hogar feliz. Y el bloque de Dionne. Dionne, hermosa y extraordinaria, la única persona que alguna vez le miró y vio lo que había en su interior.
Entonces, abrumade y con miedo, se hundió bajo la superficie, en el caos. Pero logró salir con vida. Y esta vez, Rothko está decidide a que las cosas sean distintas.
Diez años después de su última novela, Kae Tempest regresa con una conmovedora historia sobre la familia y el perdón; la redención y la expiación; el deseo y el abandono; la identidad y la comunidad. Sobre aquello que buscamos cuando nos escondemos y lo que puede encontrarnos, si nos atrevemos a dejarnos ver.
325 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
May 1, 2026
One of those earth shattering, mind altering and once in a blue moon books. The experience is somewhat like reading Euphoria in the hands of a poet with lived experience. I’ve said it many times but I’ll say it again, Kae Tempest is a stone cold genius.
May 4, 2026
most enjoyable reading experience I have had in a long time, loved every aspect of this from the characters to the sense of place to the language !! Kae
Tempest is my 🐐
Tempest is my 🐐
Read
June 7, 2026“cossos. tan previsibles, tan normals, però si els empenys fins al límit són capaços de gestes increïbles”.
quina abraçada la compassió amb què kae tempest tracta els seus personatges. com amb tot el que fa, et sents embolcallat per una tendresa feixuga i trista i esperançadora de la qual sento que encara tinc molt a aprendre. profundament agraïda de poder tenir les seves paraules a l’abast, en la forma que siguin. un regal.
(alguns problemes amb la traducció. tants castellanismes per què? Ganes de llegir-lo en anglès.)
quina abraçada la compassió amb què kae tempest tracta els seus personatges. com amb tot el que fa, et sents embolcallat per una tendresa feixuga i trista i esperançadora de la qual sento que encara tinc molt a aprendre. profundament agraïda de poder tenir les seves paraules a l’abast, en la forma que siguin. un regal.
(alguns problemes amb la traducció. tants castellanismes per què? Ganes de llegir-lo en anglès.)
Read
June 15, 2026And while I am completely engulfed in my sadness, I am happy to sense that you exist, beautiful one. I am happy to have flung myself without fear into your beauty just as a bird flings itself into space. I am happy, dear, to have walked with steady faith on the waters of our uncertainty all the way to that island which is your heart and where pain blossoms. Finally: happy.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Ulrich Baer
*
Time passes and passes. It passes backward and it passes forward and it carries you along, and no one in the whole wide world knows more about time than this: it is carrying you through an element you do not understand into an element you will not remember. Yet, something remembers - it can even be said that something avenges: the trap of our century, and the subject now before us.
—James Baldwin
without searching out titles specifically to celebrate Pride, this is my fifth related book to read this month & the most powerful. so glad it was selected for Service95’s book club June pick, as that’s how it got on my radar (& quite surprised to only see one gr friend having noted it as “want to read”… at least so far) & definitely recommend.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Ulrich Baer
*
Time passes and passes. It passes backward and it passes forward and it carries you along, and no one in the whole wide world knows more about time than this: it is carrying you through an element you do not understand into an element you will not remember. Yet, something remembers - it can even be said that something avenges: the trap of our century, and the subject now before us.
—James Baldwin
without searching out titles specifically to celebrate Pride, this is my fifth related book to read this month & the most powerful. so glad it was selected for Service95’s book club June pick, as that’s how it got on my radar (& quite surprised to only see one gr friend having noted it as “want to read”… at least so far) & definitely recommend.
July 7, 2026
Ich würde gerne 7 Sterne vergeben.
Das war so bildhaft und berührend und hart und herzerreißend gleichzeitig. Die Sprache war so toll und nah, ich hab beim Lesen alles vor mir gesehen und die Charaktere kamen mir so echt und vielschichtig vor.
Lest das alle (wenn ihr bereit dazu seid, viel zu weinen)
TW: Suizidversuch, sexualisierte Gewalt, drug abuse, Homo- und Transphobie
Das war so bildhaft und berührend und hart und herzerreißend gleichzeitig. Die Sprache war so toll und nah, ich hab beim Lesen alles vor mir gesehen und die Charaktere kamen mir so echt und vielschichtig vor.
Lest das alle (wenn ihr bereit dazu seid, viel zu weinen)
TW: Suizidversuch, sexualisierte Gewalt, drug abuse, Homo- und Transphobie
July 10, 2026
Este es un libro, donde lo primero que llamó mi atención fue que el pronombre del protagonista era neutral (elle). Y, si bien el relato acompaña a Rothko, un personaje no binario, estamos frente a una historia universal de búsqueda del lugar en el mundo, una búsqueda que se repite en cada personaje presente: la madre, el padre, la hermana, el amigo, la amiga, etc.
Una vida buscando se divide en tres partes y con ellas te das el tiempo de encariñarte, y vivir este ambiente gris, lluvioso y frío inglés, y aprovechar todo el calor de lo humano de cada uno de los participantes. Un libro que en su transcurso anduvo bien, pero que el final conquistó mi corazón para lograr las 5 estrellas.
Muy recomendado.
Un dato no menor, el autor es además poeta y rapero 👀
Una vida buscando se divide en tres partes y con ellas te das el tiempo de encariñarte, y vivir este ambiente gris, lluvioso y frío inglés, y aprovechar todo el calor de lo humano de cada uno de los participantes. Un libro que en su transcurso anduvo bien, pero que el final conquistó mi corazón para lograr las 5 estrellas.
Muy recomendado.
Un dato no menor, el autor es además poeta y rapero 👀
July 14, 2026
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 3, 2026
A beautifully written and captivating story that is absolutely heart wrenching at times, yet ultimately full of hope. Tempest is truly a master of language and writes with such emotional depth. Rothko is a character that will stay with me for a long time. Can’t wait to see Tempest at Louisiana Literature this summer!
July 13, 2026
The point isn't to feel good, the rushing water told them. The point is to feel.
kae tempest vino a madrid a presentar este libro, y recitó una parte del libro y fue una locura. es lo más cerca que he estado a un concierto suyo, y cuando era pequeña me obsesioné con let them eat chaos así que en la feria del libro sabía que este era el que quería comprar.
me da un poco de pena que no me haya encantado. estoy pendiente de que naiara lo acabe y lo pongamos en común, sobre todo desde una perspectiva no binarie / trans que yo, por mucho que esté rodeadísima de personas nb / trans masc, no vivo y no he tenido que buscar y rebuscar referentes como rothko.
porque creo que mucha de la importancia radica ahí, en tener protagonistas nb con toda la normalidad del mundo. mi problema ha sido un poco... todo el resto.
ayer describiéndoselo a mazu dije "muy dramático". pero siento que, sobre todo, no le podía quitar una cierta cualidad de libro de adolescentes. por lo radical de los eventos, por la forma de narrar... (eso sí, las partes que parecían poemas / rap me encantaban, oía a kae según leía). es que era todo muy intenso. demasiado.
me ha costado empatizar y entrar en la historia, y creo que espera más travesía del género de la que ha habido. y justo en el momento más "revelador", se me ha quedado corto de intensidad. no sé.
bueno, no quería ser yo quien dijera cosas malas de este libro, tengo mucha admiración a kae tempest y ojalá escriba muchas más novelas con personajes queer en el centro!
kae tempest vino a madrid a presentar este libro, y recitó una parte del libro y fue una locura. es lo más cerca que he estado a un concierto suyo, y cuando era pequeña me obsesioné con let them eat chaos así que en la feria del libro sabía que este era el que quería comprar.
me da un poco de pena que no me haya encantado. estoy pendiente de que naiara lo acabe y lo pongamos en común, sobre todo desde una perspectiva no binarie / trans que yo, por mucho que esté rodeadísima de personas nb / trans masc, no vivo y no he tenido que buscar y rebuscar referentes como rothko.
porque creo que mucha de la importancia radica ahí, en tener protagonistas nb con toda la normalidad del mundo. mi problema ha sido un poco... todo el resto.
ayer describiéndoselo a mazu dije "muy dramático". pero siento que, sobre todo, no le podía quitar una cierta cualidad de libro de adolescentes. por lo radical de los eventos, por la forma de narrar... (eso sí, las partes que parecían poemas / rap me encantaban, oía a kae según leía). es que era todo muy intenso. demasiado.
me ha costado empatizar y entrar en la historia, y creo que espera más travesía del género de la que ha habido. y justo en el momento más "revelador", se me ha quedado corto de intensidad. no sé.
bueno, no quería ser yo quien dijera cosas malas de este libro, tengo mucha admiración a kae tempest y ojalá escriba muchas más novelas con personajes queer en el centro!
June 25, 2026
creo que es el mejor libro que he leído en mi vida
June 29, 2026
great recommendation from the queen of book clubs herself. Dua Lipa did not disappoint!! Really liked reading it, especially the end. Solid 3.5 to 4 ⭐️
July 13, 2026
Kaunis kirja, joka opettaa, että ihmiset on enemmän kuin kauhein hetki heidän elämästä. Tykkäsin myös, miten kirjasta voi lukea päähenkilön kasvun ja miten perhe on voinut siihen vaikuttaa⭐️
July 13, 2026
Mein Buch des Jahres -auch wenn erst Juli ist.
9/10 (13.7.26)
9/10 (13.7.26)
May 3, 2026
vaya manera de escribir… que barbaridad y que emoción de final
May 27, 2026
Rothko vuelve a su ciudad después de quince años y piensa que lo mismo es un error, que debería haber elegido un lugar donde no le conocieran para poder empezar de cero. Pero no ha sido así, ha vuelto y ahora es otre. Y aunque quiere avanzar lo tiene complicado por el pasado de su padre, que intentó sin fruto construir una familia convencional que aburría a su madre y el presente de ella, que malvive como puede. Y en mitad de esa vida que parece un bucle sigue asomando la belleza de quien ya cuando Rothko era adolescente supo verle. Por eso, pero sobre todo por elle y porque creo que en el fondo sabe que vivir tiene que ser otra cosa, a pesar del caos y de vivir entre quienes cuestionan si es ella o él, Rothko se atreve a buscar su comunidad y a reivindicar su identidad.
A mí de Kae Tempest me encantan la ternura, las segundas oportunidades y el deseo de belleza. Con esta novela me ha pasado lo mismo que con la anterior (“Cuando la vida de da un martillo”), que me daban ganas de vivir en ella.
A mí de Kae Tempest me encantan la ternura, las segundas oportunidades y el deseo de belleza. Con esta novela me ha pasado lo mismo que con la anterior (“Cuando la vida de da un martillo”), que me daban ganas de vivir en ella.
June 9, 2026
se me escapan las palabras. este libro ha sido la experiencia de lectura más agradable que he tenido últimamente. está construido con una economía increíble, y aun así el narrador los llena a todes de ternura. hay una especie de lente de ternura constante a través de la que todo se mira. se nota la humanidad del escritor, cómo ha vivido esas sensaciones y momentos, y también su condición de poeta.
se percibe en la belleza con la que observa la vida, a pesar de un lenguaje sencillo y nada pomposo. tiene la misma belleza que los escenarios que construye tan vívidamente: nubes bajas, un mar que invita a caminar frente a la arena, con el fresco en pantalón corto y sudadera —quizás camiseta—, tormentas de verano.
es una novela hermosa y sensible, que dice muchísimo con muy pocas palabras. es, a la vez, compleja y sencilla. lo queer está ahí, implícito, pero no como algo rígido o panfletario, sino desde la humanidad de los personajes: son queer porque son humanos, o quizá al revés.
qué decir del amor… el amor es lo que nos salva cuando estamos preparades para sostenerlo, cuando podemos abrirnos a él. el amor adulto… se siente tan relajante, tan refugio.
terminé el libro y me quedé en la nada. de repente llegó un sollozo fuerte, y luego solo llanto seco. una caída de lágrimas como una tormenta de verano, y después mirar a lo lejos, atrapade. quería seguir leyendo, pero al mismo tiempo sabía que ya estaba.
el final… tan sencillo y tan complejo. no entendía del todo por qué el autor había introducido el personaje de angel. creo que lo intuyo, y luego, de golpe, ese final… la humanidad lo es todo.
pese al dolor, la vida es hermosa. o quizás precisamente porque el dolor existe, la vida lo puede ser: "El asunto no es sentirse bien, le dijo el agua que manaba. El asunto es sentir".
dios, es que nunca voy a superar lo vívido que se ha sentido todo.
"Conservaba una especie de lástima amable por el mundo".
se percibe en la belleza con la que observa la vida, a pesar de un lenguaje sencillo y nada pomposo. tiene la misma belleza que los escenarios que construye tan vívidamente: nubes bajas, un mar que invita a caminar frente a la arena, con el fresco en pantalón corto y sudadera —quizás camiseta—, tormentas de verano.
es una novela hermosa y sensible, que dice muchísimo con muy pocas palabras. es, a la vez, compleja y sencilla. lo queer está ahí, implícito, pero no como algo rígido o panfletario, sino desde la humanidad de los personajes: son queer porque son humanos, o quizá al revés.
qué decir del amor… el amor es lo que nos salva cuando estamos preparades para sostenerlo, cuando podemos abrirnos a él. el amor adulto… se siente tan relajante, tan refugio.
terminé el libro y me quedé en la nada. de repente llegó un sollozo fuerte, y luego solo llanto seco. una caída de lágrimas como una tormenta de verano, y después mirar a lo lejos, atrapade. quería seguir leyendo, pero al mismo tiempo sabía que ya estaba.
el final… tan sencillo y tan complejo. no entendía del todo por qué el autor había introducido el personaje de angel. creo que lo intuyo, y luego, de golpe, ese final… la humanidad lo es todo.
pese al dolor, la vida es hermosa. o quizás precisamente porque el dolor existe, la vida lo puede ser: "El asunto no es sentirse bien, le dijo el agua que manaba. El asunto es sentir".
dios, es que nunca voy a superar lo vívido que se ha sentido todo.
"Conservaba una especie de lástima amable por el mundo".
July 7, 2026
Where to begin
I feel like I’m always saying things are visceral or emotive or lyrical but this really was genuinely all those things the most ever.
The first 10-15pages really blew me away - just every word was perfect and so thought of - can really see how it took him 10years to write.
Just amazing
I think coz I know his lyrics and songs and voice so much I could hear that throughout and really felt his voice and rhythm and it felt familiar in a lovely way. Defo could hear know yourself and hold your own and grace throughout this!
Just such attention to little simple details that make it all feel so real and imaginable like I really properly saw and understood everything
‘Sarai stood outside the hospital and pushed the back of her head against the wall. Felt the gristle of bricks against her skull and exhaled as long as she could’
I think I also read this at a time when I was feeling lots of gratitude and perspectives on the hard and good of life: ‘Rothko opened their palms to catch the raindrops, watched the water bouncing out of the cup of their hands. Focused on what was really there. ‘Thank you,’ they said to the rain as it bounced. There was so much to be grateful for’
‘until…they were pinned down by an ugly sleep’ lovely
And all the trans queer stuff and the way that was done was bloody beautiful n so natural and realistic and stripped back in a lovely way
Really made me go back and listen to a lot of his music and read the lyrics through again which has been lovely
There’s more I wanna say about the end sections but spoilers!
P.S Audiobook of this plz?
I feel like I’m always saying things are visceral or emotive or lyrical but this really was genuinely all those things the most ever.
The first 10-15pages really blew me away - just every word was perfect and so thought of - can really see how it took him 10years to write.
Just amazing
I think coz I know his lyrics and songs and voice so much I could hear that throughout and really felt his voice and rhythm and it felt familiar in a lovely way. Defo could hear know yourself and hold your own and grace throughout this!
Just such attention to little simple details that make it all feel so real and imaginable like I really properly saw and understood everything
‘Sarai stood outside the hospital and pushed the back of her head against the wall. Felt the gristle of bricks against her skull and exhaled as long as she could’
I think I also read this at a time when I was feeling lots of gratitude and perspectives on the hard and good of life: ‘Rothko opened their palms to catch the raindrops, watched the water bouncing out of the cup of their hands. Focused on what was really there. ‘Thank you,’ they said to the rain as it bounced. There was so much to be grateful for’
‘until…they were pinned down by an ugly sleep’ lovely
And all the trans queer stuff and the way that was done was bloody beautiful n so natural and realistic and stripped back in a lovely way
Really made me go back and listen to a lot of his music and read the lyrics through again which has been lovely
There’s more I wanna say about the end sections but spoilers!
P.S Audiobook of this plz?
Read
June 13, 2026La historia es un 10, pero la traducción me ha dificultado mucho disfrutarla al 100%. He escuchado a Kae leyendo/declamando fragmentos en inglés y no hay nada de ese ritmo que tanto atrapa y fascina. Tendré que releerlo en la edición original (no me soporto).
May 13, 2026
Fantastic, beautiful, stunning story. Kae tempest knows life in all its ugliness and beauty.
Did Not Finish
June 11, 2026I want to start by saying Kae Tempest is such a important voice in the literary community and having trans/gay and non binary people at the centre of our stories is literally so important so I do urge absolutely anybody to read this and form your own opinion
but i’m 175 pages in and i still feel like i’m in that first 50 or so pages at the beginning of any book when the story characters are being established.
i cant even begin to describe to you how jarring I am finding the prose. The narrative is completely overrun with metaphors/similes and adjectives.
Every. Single. Sentence.
At this point even the most profound use of any of these is going to lose it’s impact.
the narrative is also inconsistent, we are introduced to a character and then we don’t hear from them for 100 pages suddenly they reappear for a paragraph in their pov yet they still haven’t interacted with our mc for them to just disappear again.
It’s just here’s a person and a place: care about them.
Rather than the narrative doing the work to engage us as readers and make us feel engaged
but i’m 175 pages in and i still feel like i’m in that first 50 or so pages at the beginning of any book when the story characters are being established.
i cant even begin to describe to you how jarring I am finding the prose. The narrative is completely overrun with metaphors/similes and adjectives.
Every. Single. Sentence.
At this point even the most profound use of any of these is going to lose it’s impact.
the narrative is also inconsistent, we are introduced to a character and then we don’t hear from them for 100 pages suddenly they reappear for a paragraph in their pov yet they still haven’t interacted with our mc for them to just disappear again.
It’s just here’s a person and a place: care about them.
Rather than the narrative doing the work to engage us as readers and make us feel engaged
Read
June 30, 2026I crashed out of reading their previous novel but still had high hopes for this one. And I adored it. It took me by the throat and didn't let go. Bcause of this, there were scenes that genuinely took my breath away. The stream of consciousness moments and the volta where the story retires 'they' as the pronoun and switches to 'he' in regards to Rothko. It made me scan the page back to see the precise moment it was first deployed.
Read it. It's so good.
"They wanted to walk down the high street, look in shop windows, see the pretty things on display all lit up nicely. Push through the doors of a warm pub. Stand with their foot on a brass runner at an old oak bar. They had a thirst on for an afternoon pint. Imagined the feeling of striding in, being greeted by old friends. Warm sunny beer frothing in a glass. They could have a pint, couldn't they? One pint didn't mean... Their throat was sore for beer after all this thinking."
"A train pulled in, slow route to somewhere else, and she stepped on. The sky fell all the way down to the ground and the night was the rain and the rain was the night."
"The walls of the train were pushing close. The women were still yelping, wetly, feeding each other slabs of fresh attention, then diving back down to hide beneath the froth of their complete unknowability. It disgusted her. They disgusted her. The whole world disgusted her."
"Like many other couples who exist in polar opposition they necessitated each other for a blazing moment, before they each saw themselves reflected in their partner's eyes, and couldn't bear what they'd become."
"'Mate. Are you a girl or a boy?'
Rothko smiled and said slowly, 'I don't know. Maybe I 'm both.' And they raised their arms in a wide shrug that took in the street, the rain, the pointlessness of the whole thing."
"Edgecliff.
It was an I could have been something kind of town.
It was an I'm going to give them what I never had even if it kills me kind of town."
"Sat at the back of the classroom. Waiting for life to restart. Gold peace sign on a flimsy chain. Fire opal on a silver band that they wore on their middle finger. Big thighs, big arms. Wide hips they hated. Stocky frame. A belly that rounded out over their belt. Their fingernails were bitten to blood, blue biro smudged over the backs of their hands.
Trapped in a small room with small people who wanted small things. They slumped at the desk. Too big for it all."
"Spent their summers dodging the pissed-up weekenders, fresh off the trains for a kiss and a dance and a vomit."
"And then she kissed them. Caught their lip in her teeth and pushed till the world made sense. The softness of her body giving as Rothko pushed towards her pushing. She held their shoulders and their neck in her hot, blunt fingers, pulled them into her. Rothko in two t-shirts, two hoodies, trackies underneath their jeans, wrapped against the world, felt naked. Stood there in the kiss not knowing how to return it, not knowing how not to return it."
"Their secret world so loud it drowned the real world out. And [character] looked and looked away and looked again and looked away and the school disappeared and slowed right down, and it all sounded like the lowest note on the piano."
"Rothko smiled vaguely. As if they were a part of things."
"Sevredol, they read. Morphine sulphate.
They weighed the box in their hand. Tried to feel its power. But coud not.
This little white box of pain relief. It looked so clean and efficient to Rothko. How could these blank pills be the same thing as the carnage that swallowed their mum?
Can cause addiction.
The thing she'd chosen over them. Again and again. And again. And forever."
"They didn't choose to, or mean to, or even know they were going to, it was only as they pushed the box of pills into their pocket that they realised they had."
"Rothko checked up and down the high street, fuck it, kissed the things they couldn't say into [Character's] dancing mouth, and felt the kiss coming back that told them she had understood."
"Rothko stared, as they understood they were being invited to. She took the stare and danced with it. Closed their open mouth with a fingernail beneath their chin. A performance of rehearsed sexuality learned from a Hollywood bombshell, metabolised through two little queers in Edgecliff."
"When [Character] said their name, it was like they'd just been given it. Just learned that it was theirs. She was steady with them, gritted teeth, no going back and Rothko giving in to her and letting her, and this was real. It had to be."
"The TV was on, and the iron was steaming and she didn't notice the blank pits of their eyes. Their stuck jaws."
"They swelled as it did, all the fierce colours were theirs. Liquid. Solid. Gas. All things at once. They coaxed it, praised it with what they could find to treat it with: branches, rubbish, slabs of rotting MDF. Devouring force that created itself. It was huge suddenly, and charging towards them, bearing down. They became aware of its magnitude too late. Its heat, its smoke. They stood before it, spellbound. A child in front of a speeding train."
"They took off. Sprinting as hard as they could. Trying to sprint their way back to before. The whole town grim as the ssa but they ran so heart it boiled their sweat."
"But [Character] is leaning back with her hands behind her, her entire body is a tuning fork, conducting the vibration, feeling the tingles in her lips. And it looks nice to Rothko to be that free. To be that dark and dead and free from feeling. To be that stuck and ill and sick and scared. It looks like love."
"Every hour is a tower to escape from. Risk it out the window, headfirst through the hailstorm. Bliss before everything else. Living like a fish in a bag at the fairground, head-butting the plastic, finally they see it. It's one thing wanting freedom. It's another thing to be it."
"Still, the stupid human heart hopes for miracles that won't come. Miracles, like take me if you want. But please save mum."
"When the world plays dead, play deader. Get small. Cos at the end of every tether is the last thread gripped against the fall."
"But Rothko was alive at last. Or they were alive at least. That first morning underneath the heavy rain that came falling on the roof like it was trying to explain that the source and the solution were the same, they saw it shining, perfectly dirty and plain: the glory of the mundane."
"But what they didn't know, while they were looking at the trains in the station, plugged into the mains of creation, is they were held in the arms of every future, every past, every first and every last, that at any given moment, every present must contain. It was all coming for them, slow motion. This moment. Time had them in its teeth, and it dragged them by the throat until it dropped them in today and said, atonement"
"Or maybe you find yourself walking down the street with your shoulders back for the first time in your fucking life. Or, maybe, something goes wrong and there's a little bulge in your chest, or something doesn't heal right, it's not like you have this surgery and suddenly everything's fixed and you don't still feel all the ways you feel now, you know? It's a start. But it's not the finish line. What finish line?"
"Rattling around in their own skin for years, they'd given up on somebody finding them. Long-term dead to the idea that there might be someone out there who could open the vent and let the steam out. Wriggling around in the desolate pull towards recklessness."
"...and maybe this is just what it's like to live here, it's just one rock one spinning rock not even a dent in the press of eternity and each little now is entirely meaningless but it's all that we've got so Rothko how can it feel so real so lost so cruel so fix it I'm trying to fix it depressed and fanatical desperately clinging to prayers or diets or discipline none of us, all of us children of a dead regime spinning where are you, and most of all Rothko how could such a thing as weightless as life be so fucking heavy so much of the time."
"This is exactly the thing they had missed the most. Turning a corner and not knowing where the road might lead you. Letting things happen, just by accident."
"they pushed very close. Studied each other with their eyes closed, feeling the distance between them with breath, closing the distance, parting their lips and pushing their parted lips together. They kissed at last, and the kiss was hot and thorough, a compete kiss that involved every cell of their lips and mouths and cheeks and chins and hands and entire bodies dancing into, around and out of the kiss, in the dim dark light they kissed on and on and their clothes were in the way of the kiss and they had to have skin and body and touch, and so they kissed through the clothes, the clothes were unbuttoned and pulled up and dragged off, so they could kiss deeper and reveal the buried levels of the kiss in all its glory and filth."
"He could see himself, running down the road towards his mum's place. Sixteen forever. Terrified forever.
But as he watched, he saw the kid he used to be looking back behind him, and for a second he could have sworn they locked eyes."
"The world had taught Rothko to be ashamed of her. Of how dirty and loud and ruined she was. How drunk, but he had always seen a grim kind of dignity in the way she threw herself so fully into desire and abandon. Into terror, into bliss."
"The music took him, hard, and put him in his skin and draped his skin over his body and fixed it all together and sang in him and gave him life an taught him everything he knew and told him everything was what it should be and that really it was fine that things hurt so much they way they did because some people in this world could take that hurt and make this fucking magic out of it. The music that meant other people could bear it better."
"It was like all the Rothko that had ever lived was in the room with him. All the Rothkos that he had caried around for years and stifled and not listened to and pushed down into his feet, they were all there. Stood around, holding each other's shoulders."
"She slipped into a state of pure elation, clasping her hands under her chin and closing her eyes so she could feel the feeling better as it warmed her veins like love you like maybe it wasn't too late. Like Mum. Like maybe it wasn't too late to be loved."
"'Have you seen my man?'
And [Character's] public declaration hung like a golden bridge between their teenage selves and the adults they had, at that very moment, become."
Read it. It's so good.
"They wanted to walk down the high street, look in shop windows, see the pretty things on display all lit up nicely. Push through the doors of a warm pub. Stand with their foot on a brass runner at an old oak bar. They had a thirst on for an afternoon pint. Imagined the feeling of striding in, being greeted by old friends. Warm sunny beer frothing in a glass. They could have a pint, couldn't they? One pint didn't mean... Their throat was sore for beer after all this thinking."
"A train pulled in, slow route to somewhere else, and she stepped on. The sky fell all the way down to the ground and the night was the rain and the rain was the night."
"The walls of the train were pushing close. The women were still yelping, wetly, feeding each other slabs of fresh attention, then diving back down to hide beneath the froth of their complete unknowability. It disgusted her. They disgusted her. The whole world disgusted her."
"Like many other couples who exist in polar opposition they necessitated each other for a blazing moment, before they each saw themselves reflected in their partner's eyes, and couldn't bear what they'd become."
"'Mate. Are you a girl or a boy?'
Rothko smiled and said slowly, 'I don't know. Maybe I 'm both.' And they raised their arms in a wide shrug that took in the street, the rain, the pointlessness of the whole thing."
"Edgecliff.
It was an I could have been something kind of town.
It was an I'm going to give them what I never had even if it kills me kind of town."
"Sat at the back of the classroom. Waiting for life to restart. Gold peace sign on a flimsy chain. Fire opal on a silver band that they wore on their middle finger. Big thighs, big arms. Wide hips they hated. Stocky frame. A belly that rounded out over their belt. Their fingernails were bitten to blood, blue biro smudged over the backs of their hands.
Trapped in a small room with small people who wanted small things. They slumped at the desk. Too big for it all."
"Spent their summers dodging the pissed-up weekenders, fresh off the trains for a kiss and a dance and a vomit."
"And then she kissed them. Caught their lip in her teeth and pushed till the world made sense. The softness of her body giving as Rothko pushed towards her pushing. She held their shoulders and their neck in her hot, blunt fingers, pulled them into her. Rothko in two t-shirts, two hoodies, trackies underneath their jeans, wrapped against the world, felt naked. Stood there in the kiss not knowing how to return it, not knowing how not to return it."
"Their secret world so loud it drowned the real world out. And [character] looked and looked away and looked again and looked away and the school disappeared and slowed right down, and it all sounded like the lowest note on the piano."
"Rothko smiled vaguely. As if they were a part of things."
"Sevredol, they read. Morphine sulphate.
They weighed the box in their hand. Tried to feel its power. But coud not.
This little white box of pain relief. It looked so clean and efficient to Rothko. How could these blank pills be the same thing as the carnage that swallowed their mum?
Can cause addiction.
The thing she'd chosen over them. Again and again. And again. And forever."
"They didn't choose to, or mean to, or even know they were going to, it was only as they pushed the box of pills into their pocket that they realised they had."
"Rothko checked up and down the high street, fuck it, kissed the things they couldn't say into [Character's] dancing mouth, and felt the kiss coming back that told them she had understood."
"Rothko stared, as they understood they were being invited to. She took the stare and danced with it. Closed their open mouth with a fingernail beneath their chin. A performance of rehearsed sexuality learned from a Hollywood bombshell, metabolised through two little queers in Edgecliff."
"When [Character] said their name, it was like they'd just been given it. Just learned that it was theirs. She was steady with them, gritted teeth, no going back and Rothko giving in to her and letting her, and this was real. It had to be."
"The TV was on, and the iron was steaming and she didn't notice the blank pits of their eyes. Their stuck jaws."
"They swelled as it did, all the fierce colours were theirs. Liquid. Solid. Gas. All things at once. They coaxed it, praised it with what they could find to treat it with: branches, rubbish, slabs of rotting MDF. Devouring force that created itself. It was huge suddenly, and charging towards them, bearing down. They became aware of its magnitude too late. Its heat, its smoke. They stood before it, spellbound. A child in front of a speeding train."
"They took off. Sprinting as hard as they could. Trying to sprint their way back to before. The whole town grim as the ssa but they ran so heart it boiled their sweat."
"But [Character] is leaning back with her hands behind her, her entire body is a tuning fork, conducting the vibration, feeling the tingles in her lips. And it looks nice to Rothko to be that free. To be that dark and dead and free from feeling. To be that stuck and ill and sick and scared. It looks like love."
"Every hour is a tower to escape from. Risk it out the window, headfirst through the hailstorm. Bliss before everything else. Living like a fish in a bag at the fairground, head-butting the plastic, finally they see it. It's one thing wanting freedom. It's another thing to be it."
"Still, the stupid human heart hopes for miracles that won't come. Miracles, like take me if you want. But please save mum."
"When the world plays dead, play deader. Get small. Cos at the end of every tether is the last thread gripped against the fall."
"But Rothko was alive at last. Or they were alive at least. That first morning underneath the heavy rain that came falling on the roof like it was trying to explain that the source and the solution were the same, they saw it shining, perfectly dirty and plain: the glory of the mundane."
"But what they didn't know, while they were looking at the trains in the station, plugged into the mains of creation, is they were held in the arms of every future, every past, every first and every last, that at any given moment, every present must contain. It was all coming for them, slow motion. This moment. Time had them in its teeth, and it dragged them by the throat until it dropped them in today and said, atonement"
"Or maybe you find yourself walking down the street with your shoulders back for the first time in your fucking life. Or, maybe, something goes wrong and there's a little bulge in your chest, or something doesn't heal right, it's not like you have this surgery and suddenly everything's fixed and you don't still feel all the ways you feel now, you know? It's a start. But it's not the finish line. What finish line?"
"Rattling around in their own skin for years, they'd given up on somebody finding them. Long-term dead to the idea that there might be someone out there who could open the vent and let the steam out. Wriggling around in the desolate pull towards recklessness."
"...and maybe this is just what it's like to live here, it's just one rock one spinning rock not even a dent in the press of eternity and each little now is entirely meaningless but it's all that we've got so Rothko how can it feel so real so lost so cruel so fix it I'm trying to fix it depressed and fanatical desperately clinging to prayers or diets or discipline none of us, all of us children of a dead regime spinning where are you, and most of all Rothko how could such a thing as weightless as life be so fucking heavy so much of the time."
"This is exactly the thing they had missed the most. Turning a corner and not knowing where the road might lead you. Letting things happen, just by accident."
"they pushed very close. Studied each other with their eyes closed, feeling the distance between them with breath, closing the distance, parting their lips and pushing their parted lips together. They kissed at last, and the kiss was hot and thorough, a compete kiss that involved every cell of their lips and mouths and cheeks and chins and hands and entire bodies dancing into, around and out of the kiss, in the dim dark light they kissed on and on and their clothes were in the way of the kiss and they had to have skin and body and touch, and so they kissed through the clothes, the clothes were unbuttoned and pulled up and dragged off, so they could kiss deeper and reveal the buried levels of the kiss in all its glory and filth."
"He could see himself, running down the road towards his mum's place. Sixteen forever. Terrified forever.
But as he watched, he saw the kid he used to be looking back behind him, and for a second he could have sworn they locked eyes."
"The world had taught Rothko to be ashamed of her. Of how dirty and loud and ruined she was. How drunk, but he had always seen a grim kind of dignity in the way she threw herself so fully into desire and abandon. Into terror, into bliss."
"The music took him, hard, and put him in his skin and draped his skin over his body and fixed it all together and sang in him and gave him life an taught him everything he knew and told him everything was what it should be and that really it was fine that things hurt so much they way they did because some people in this world could take that hurt and make this fucking magic out of it. The music that meant other people could bear it better."
"It was like all the Rothko that had ever lived was in the room with him. All the Rothkos that he had caried around for years and stifled and not listened to and pushed down into his feet, they were all there. Stood around, holding each other's shoulders."
"She slipped into a state of pure elation, clasping her hands under her chin and closing her eyes so she could feel the feeling better as it warmed her veins like love you like maybe it wasn't too late. Like Mum. Like maybe it wasn't too late to be loved."
"'Have you seen my man?'
And [Character's] public declaration hung like a golden bridge between their teenage selves and the adults they had, at that very moment, become."
July 1, 2026
A beautiful book about redemption, love, and coming to roost in a body that has never felt like home.
July 10, 2026
What a fantastic book, I love Kae’s music but this the first book of his I have read. You get a real feel for the people and their lives and the whole story felt really moving. All I want to do is read more!
July 11, 2026
A beautiful reminder that we are far more than our worst moments. Another W for Dua Lipa’s book club <3
June 13, 2026
Kae Tempest write something that isn’t a masterpiece challenge level: impossible
June 25, 2026
Very beautifully written. Some parts, like when the main character’s life went off the rails were beyond stunning. But it was also kind of boring. The short sentences started to grate and read like AI prompts at times.
June 10, 2026
Beautiful writing a little hard for me to get into
June 7, 2026
Rothko struggles with family addiction, sexual awakening and peer groups until they do something bound and end up in prison. Told in poetry and unusual text forms. Some beautiful lines and moments that give light to the chaos but trying too hard in places.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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