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At Certain Points We Touch
SELECTED FOR STYLIST'S FICTION YOU CAN'T MISS IN 2022 - 'AN ESSENTIAL READ' NAMED AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY ESQUIRE, STYLIST, SHEERLUXE AND FOYLES'A stone-cold masterpiece by a shocking new talent' OLIVIA LAING It's four in the morning, and our narrator is walking home from the club when they realise that it's February 29th - the birthday of the man who was something like their first love. Piecing together art, letters and memory, they set about trying to write the story of a doomed affair that first sparked and burned a decade ago. Ten years earlier, and our young narrator and a boy named Thomas James fall into bed with one another over the summer of their graduation. Their ensuing affair, with its violent, animal intensity and its intoxicating and toxic power play will initiate a dance of repulsion and attraction that will cross years, span continents, drag in countless victims - and culminate in terrible betrayal. At Certain Points We Touch is a story of first love and last rites, conjured against a vivid backdrop of London, San Francisco and New York - a riotous, razor-sharp coming-of-age story that marks the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.'Lauren John Joseph writes with such wit, glamour, and style! I haven't read a book that so powerfully evokes what it's like to be a wild young artist among other wild young artists since the Bright Young Things' TORREY PETERS, author of Detransition, Baby'Lauren's debut novel is so exciting. The writing is so fresh, funny and gripping - and carries the trademark wit that I have always loved from Lauren' TRAVIS ALABANZA'The struggle to find ones place in the world as an artist and lover, creating self and culture as you go along - At Certain Points We Touch captures this fleeting, dazzling moment with glamour and heart' MICHELLE TEA
384 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2022
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December 18, 2021*book received from NG**
(A pronoun clarity note: I’ll be using she/her for the protagonist, they/them for the author)
In one of those “queer circles are too small” moments, it turns out I’m actually reasonably familiar with the work of this author, having seen them in performance several times over the years. But I didn’t actually connect their name with their previous stage name because I’m an idiot.
I do like to think, however, I’d have recognised the voice. Because there is something about Lauren John Joseph that has always resonated with me: a combination of superficial similarities—like being born in the north and (over)educated in the south—coupled with their profound capacity to articulate queerness, a sense of queerness, that feels both specific and universal.
In any case, At Certain Points We Touch is no exception. But is also one of *those* books: the queer story as old as time where the narrator, rootless, adrift in memory and untethered in time, slowly unwinds for the semi-voyeuristic, semi-empathetic reader a doomed love story. A doomed loved story with a total prick. Because it’s always a total prick. You cannot have a proper DLS in a queer context unless the guy is a total prick.
And I think I must be getting old, or I’ve read that story too often, because my patience for it is not so much worn thin as entirely dissolved. Also, I’m coming to the conclusion it might be borderline impossible to tell because how do you make this person—this powerfully charismatic total prick—as enthralling to the reader as they are to the narrator? The problem is, charisma, especially toxic charisma, is always going to be an abstract thing. And without it, you just get the quite long-winded tale of a terrible person who you’re literally waiting to die.
All of which was to say, the emotional heart of this novel I understood more than I felt. I didn’t blame the heroine for her terrible taste in men, but I felt I zero connection to either the terrible Thomas James or the less-terrible Adam who provide the corners of this nasty little love triangle. And, of course, maybe that was the point: this is, after all, a story Bibby is narrating and better for it to be about her than the two basic cis men in her life, but I think with them never feeling quite real, it impacted the realness of Bibby too.
But, then, that could very well have been deliberate. In a story about a dead man, everyone becomes a ghost, and the title of the book does reflect its self-conscious ephemerality. It’s a novel of moments and of memory, the ultimate unreliability of both, and the pain of incomplete connection: whether that’s because of gender, or class, or geography, or, y’know, actual death.
And now this sounds really negative just because I can’t be arsed with toxic gay boys imbued with fictional glamour but … err … I actually really loved this. The writing is gloriously unabashed, skimming effortlessly from the esoteric to the ribald, from the poetic to the pragmatic, though you kind of have also accept it’s as extra as fuck. From the millennial club scene, to philosophy, to religion, to history, and popular culture this a book that hasn’t met a reference it doesn’t want to squeeze in somewhere. And despite its loose chronology and somewhat distant-feeling characters, the book has amazing sense of place and time.
As well as some incredible moments of emotional clarity on the part of the narrator that speak so broadly and movingly to the nature of queerness itself:
I found this so fascinating and so powerfully articulated: the often unacknowledged division between those in our community for whom complicated queerness is as incomprehensible as its opposite is to others.
It is moments of such as these that make this book for me. They more than compensate for sections when the pacing lags, the faint sense of awkwardness of essentially hanging around in a narrative waiting for a character to die, the times when the writing buckles under its own ambitions and falls apart. It’s a dazzling and deeply queer debut from a frankly infuriatingly talented person. This is going to sound disgustingly glib but the fact is … at certain points this novel touched me. And that, in itself, was significant enough that the rest didn’t matter. I should get at least a 7 at GCSE English for an observation like that.
Although I will say, that books like this always give me a feeling like:
All other queer millennials
Me
(A pronoun clarity note: I’ll be using she/her for the protagonist, they/them for the author)
In one of those “queer circles are too small” moments, it turns out I’m actually reasonably familiar with the work of this author, having seen them in performance several times over the years. But I didn’t actually connect their name with their previous stage name because I’m an idiot.
I do like to think, however, I’d have recognised the voice. Because there is something about Lauren John Joseph that has always resonated with me: a combination of superficial similarities—like being born in the north and (over)educated in the south—coupled with their profound capacity to articulate queerness, a sense of queerness, that feels both specific and universal.
In any case, At Certain Points We Touch is no exception. But is also one of *those* books: the queer story as old as time where the narrator, rootless, adrift in memory and untethered in time, slowly unwinds for the semi-voyeuristic, semi-empathetic reader a doomed love story. A doomed loved story with a total prick. Because it’s always a total prick. You cannot have a proper DLS in a queer context unless the guy is a total prick.
And I think I must be getting old, or I’ve read that story too often, because my patience for it is not so much worn thin as entirely dissolved. Also, I’m coming to the conclusion it might be borderline impossible to tell because how do you make this person—this powerfully charismatic total prick—as enthralling to the reader as they are to the narrator? The problem is, charisma, especially toxic charisma, is always going to be an abstract thing. And without it, you just get the quite long-winded tale of a terrible person who you’re literally waiting to die.
All of which was to say, the emotional heart of this novel I understood more than I felt. I didn’t blame the heroine for her terrible taste in men, but I felt I zero connection to either the terrible Thomas James or the less-terrible Adam who provide the corners of this nasty little love triangle. And, of course, maybe that was the point: this is, after all, a story Bibby is narrating and better for it to be about her than the two basic cis men in her life, but I think with them never feeling quite real, it impacted the realness of Bibby too.
But, then, that could very well have been deliberate. In a story about a dead man, everyone becomes a ghost, and the title of the book does reflect its self-conscious ephemerality. It’s a novel of moments and of memory, the ultimate unreliability of both, and the pain of incomplete connection: whether that’s because of gender, or class, or geography, or, y’know, actual death.
And now this sounds really negative just because I can’t be arsed with toxic gay boys imbued with fictional glamour but … err … I actually really loved this. The writing is gloriously unabashed, skimming effortlessly from the esoteric to the ribald, from the poetic to the pragmatic, though you kind of have also accept it’s as extra as fuck. From the millennial club scene, to philosophy, to religion, to history, and popular culture this a book that hasn’t met a reference it doesn’t want to squeeze in somewhere. And despite its loose chronology and somewhat distant-feeling characters, the book has amazing sense of place and time.
As well as some incredible moments of emotional clarity on the part of the narrator that speak so broadly and movingly to the nature of queerness itself:
“there in the gallery, i think i finally began to understand that you and Adam really were just what you said you were, just two gay men, just two guys who have sex with guys, that’s all. i had thought that your predilection of for transfemmes and androgynes would serve me well, keep me safe, but in reality you didn’t ever consider any of us as serious candidates, did you? there was no place for us in this mirror world. my own incongruous physicality, flat chest, long hair, the feminine dominance i possessed marked me as an intruder in this uncomplicated universe…”
I found this so fascinating and so powerfully articulated: the often unacknowledged division between those in our community for whom complicated queerness is as incomprehensible as its opposite is to others.
It is moments of such as these that make this book for me. They more than compensate for sections when the pacing lags, the faint sense of awkwardness of essentially hanging around in a narrative waiting for a character to die, the times when the writing buckles under its own ambitions and falls apart. It’s a dazzling and deeply queer debut from a frankly infuriatingly talented person. This is going to sound disgustingly glib but the fact is … at certain points this novel touched me. And that, in itself, was significant enough that the rest didn’t matter. I should get at least a 7 at GCSE English for an observation like that.
Although I will say, that books like this always give me a feeling like:
All other queer millennials
Me
January 30, 2023
“10 years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years since your death”
I wanted so much to love this... A very messy, very toxic affair. I didn’t mind the unlikable protagonist, in love for whatever reason with an even more unlikeable character; I didn’t mind the woe-is-me tone it sometimes took, all those poor decisions that led nowhere, story-wise, but I can’t get over the writing. Some similes are… a choice, to say the least.
It tried too hard to impress and didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Hence my rating.
I wanted so much to love this... A very messy, very toxic affair. I didn’t mind the unlikable protagonist, in love for whatever reason with an even more unlikeable character; I didn’t mind the woe-is-me tone it sometimes took, all those poor decisions that led nowhere, story-wise, but I can’t get over the writing. Some similes are… a choice, to say the least.
“‘I know,’ I said, ‘this isn’t where I thought I was headed either. I feel like a late-term abortion, like I’ve been ripped out of my own life.’”
“All the grammar, all the tenses of my life were at odds . . . like a non-native speaker who mixes up their verbs and asks, ‘Shall I go to you now?’” (meaning immigrants?)
“… the sensation that my urethra was filled with broken glass – that I was pissing out a pogrom.”
It tried too hard to impress and didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Hence my rating.
February 18, 2023
This was beautifully written. My heart hurts.
dnf
May 21, 2023floor pile may is cancelled because apparently i only own books that i hate
bye bye unlikeable love interest, i will not miss you and i will certainly not miss the descriptions of your feet, dnf on page 93
bye bye unlikeable love interest, i will not miss you and i will certainly not miss the descriptions of your feet, dnf on page 93
June 11, 2023
i really really wanted to like this but oh god the sex scenes were just a bit icky. like... i do not need to read about sweaty stinky feet. the prose was really over the top in places and i just didn't vibe with it. and honestly as a nonbinary person — the nonbinary rep just wasn't enough.
July 5, 2022
A phenomenal eulogy to, presumably, a fictional gay lover from a trans woman in what appears to be the early oughts almost coming-of-age story nested in the (again, fictional, I presume) London queer scene of the time. On the anniversary of her lover's death, she descends into a fit of hypergraphia—chronicling—through an open letter directed at the deceased reader—her life predominantly through the lens of the tremulous and exultant relationship with the complex rendered dead. The definition of unflinching really, since it’s as much about characterizing the narrator as it is him, Thomas, now 4 years gone.
Rather than about transitioning or bildungsroman or capturing the “scene”, it really is almost 400 pages of showing how her life was affected by Thomas while acting as an architect with some perspective, cobbling together who he actually was. Though emotion is tinged throughout, it’s also a kind of exorcism because Thomas was not a very “good” person. His relationship to his queerness and his fundamental homophobia and conservative values are unearthed, begging the question of who he might have become. Chillingly, there’s a mention of him probably having voted for Brexit, had he had the opportunity even. Thomas’s fixation on femmes is also, really troubling.
But there’s also no opportunity to grow. There’s grey space in their time in the most formative years of adulthood. Jetting off to people who don’t treat each other poorly. Intersections of poverty and queerness and internalized socialization are complex. It gives a lot of space to show all the characters, including Thomas, in a very humanistic light. One that makes it really difficult to condemn anyone, even when they ought to be perhaps, especially in this day and age of cancel culture though, when you have the full measure, or near it, the ability to shun seems to allude to a fate worse than death. Before it was even fashionable.
The prose work is as fantastic as the characters. Plot-driven readers will probably go a bit mad waiting for more “things to happen”, but interiority-driven ones will lap this up. It’s as strung out as our narrator tends to be in those young years at times, but always a pleasure. Especially when it drives to the meat of the relationship and then circles around again, not quite ready to come to terms with the really ugly notions this means for Thomas and her. I thought it was strategically plotted, unafraid to fly in the face of convention, as literary fiction is want to do, usually. As gorgeous as it is ugly. Bright and clear and witty, tremendously sad at just the right times. Loved it.
It is, by the way, “very gay”, in terms of the graphic sex scenes and lens with which male bodies are displayed, talked about, and sexualized, with, you know, lots of sex. So may not be for some. I thought it made a lot of sense to the character and it was fascinating to have that from a pre-transitioned, liminal space queer perspective. Neither identifying as trans at the time nor a gay man and entangled with men who identify as gay but not queer, often. Fascinating stuff. Some will clutch pearls, so be aware. Perhaps TOO gay for the Booker then, given the judge of a previous year saying Shuggie Bain was gay but not too gay. This is far exceeding those scenes. But it absolutely ought to be a Booker book, and is a prize book of high caliber in my estimation.
Rather than about transitioning or bildungsroman or capturing the “scene”, it really is almost 400 pages of showing how her life was affected by Thomas while acting as an architect with some perspective, cobbling together who he actually was. Though emotion is tinged throughout, it’s also a kind of exorcism because Thomas was not a very “good” person. His relationship to his queerness and his fundamental homophobia and conservative values are unearthed, begging the question of who he might have become. Chillingly, there’s a mention of him probably having voted for Brexit, had he had the opportunity even. Thomas’s fixation on femmes is also, really troubling.
But there’s also no opportunity to grow. There’s grey space in their time in the most formative years of adulthood. Jetting off to people who don’t treat each other poorly. Intersections of poverty and queerness and internalized socialization are complex. It gives a lot of space to show all the characters, including Thomas, in a very humanistic light. One that makes it really difficult to condemn anyone, even when they ought to be perhaps, especially in this day and age of cancel culture though, when you have the full measure, or near it, the ability to shun seems to allude to a fate worse than death. Before it was even fashionable.
The prose work is as fantastic as the characters. Plot-driven readers will probably go a bit mad waiting for more “things to happen”, but interiority-driven ones will lap this up. It’s as strung out as our narrator tends to be in those young years at times, but always a pleasure. Especially when it drives to the meat of the relationship and then circles around again, not quite ready to come to terms with the really ugly notions this means for Thomas and her. I thought it was strategically plotted, unafraid to fly in the face of convention, as literary fiction is want to do, usually. As gorgeous as it is ugly. Bright and clear and witty, tremendously sad at just the right times. Loved it.
It is, by the way, “very gay”, in terms of the graphic sex scenes and lens with which male bodies are displayed, talked about, and sexualized, with, you know, lots of sex. So may not be for some. I thought it made a lot of sense to the character and it was fascinating to have that from a pre-transitioned, liminal space queer perspective. Neither identifying as trans at the time nor a gay man and entangled with men who identify as gay but not queer, often. Fascinating stuff. Some will clutch pearls, so be aware. Perhaps TOO gay for the Booker then, given the judge of a previous year saying Shuggie Bain was gay but not too gay. This is far exceeding those scenes. But it absolutely ought to be a Booker book, and is a prize book of high caliber in my estimation.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 20, 2023
“It’s impossible for the human mind to dominate the things which haunt it”.
—Iris Murdoch
JJ was a transgender performer and writer. He describes a hapless dalliance with a gorgeous lover (first love) from London.
“At Certain Points We Touch” is a very impressive debut—the writing seems like it could only have been written by a very experienced writer.
The narrative moves through London, San Francisco, and New York….
covering night-life, nightclubs, bedrooms, sex, sexy dialogue, queerness, fabulous flamboyant “dirty bastards’, love, loss, Lisa Minnelli humor, affections, humiliation, flaunted transfemininity,
couch-crashing friends from Berkeley, desires, jealousy, and toxic relationships.
Many of the lifestyle descriptions reminded me how peacefully quiet - and very different my own life is.
My days are long past of days I’d be found in bar in San Francisco to a packed house of filled with ‘dress-to-kill’ people….scoping out who’s there, wearing what…. (but there was a time).
JJ writes….
“When did you know you were dead? I’m asking you a question that I know you can never answer. It is now ten years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years since your death, and I’m writing you this from Mexico City, under grave obligation. It is not a letter, since I know you cannot reply; maybe it’s another monologue, certainly it does not require a second choice; let’s call it plainsong then. This is the chant recalling your life, it is fiction, it is biography, it is transfiguration”.
“There was no middle ground with you, which makes your own endless moral ambivalence all the more frustrating now I come to review it. You had no steady code of ethics, yet you dealt in absolutes. There were only those you esteemed, and those you detested, and I had the dubious luck of being pinched between the two like loose cargo on deck, thrown between prow and stern on turbulent seas. I’m not sure what I ever did to earn your desire or deserve your contempt, but I took comfort in knowing that this was how you acted with any number of people. I know I wasn’t the only person who left your presence, seething, and cursing, and to “my mother, calling you ‘fit to burn’”.
“Looking about me now, ten years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years since your death, acknowledging this indefatigable era of puerile talking heads who have clawed their way to infamy, with a little of manufactured outrages, stoking, their phony, moral panics, I can’t help thinking that you were a sort of John the Baptist for them all. I don’t mean that, as a compliment, only a thought that comes to mind when I think of the world where left to deal with now”.
“But these aren’t things that are most pronounced when you are in love, they are truths, which reveal themselves over time, like the bones of a skeleton as the flesh rots away. Somehow it’s been a decade since that first fuck and I don’t know where all the time has gone. Perhaps the heat of the affair has burned it all up? It’s like that sad scene in ‘The Blue Angel’ where the once-dignified Emil Jennings serves Marlene Dietrich as her handmaid, testing the temperature of her curling tongs on the pages of a wall calendar. He clamps the jaws of the tongs down on the date, scorching away day after day, month, after month, until years are elided in a montage that lasts no more than a minute. This is how the years have gone by”.
“I didn’t want you ever to think you had won me, that it was all in the bag. And I was more aware that for you, the thrill was in the kill, not the feast. In that way, at least we were both very alike”.
John looked so “vainglorious” to JJ…
He felt something like love ….
“There’s something too painful in remembering how full of potential everything seemed back then when the world was ours”.
Spicy, swishy, sassy, sexy, sleazy, kinky, and at times campy….
….a coming-of-age look at the countercultural millennial lifestyles.
It was good —
Ha….but made me ‘feel’ old!
—Iris Murdoch
JJ was a transgender performer and writer. He describes a hapless dalliance with a gorgeous lover (first love) from London.
“At Certain Points We Touch” is a very impressive debut—the writing seems like it could only have been written by a very experienced writer.
The narrative moves through London, San Francisco, and New York….
covering night-life, nightclubs, bedrooms, sex, sexy dialogue, queerness, fabulous flamboyant “dirty bastards’, love, loss, Lisa Minnelli humor, affections, humiliation, flaunted transfemininity,
couch-crashing friends from Berkeley, desires, jealousy, and toxic relationships.
Many of the lifestyle descriptions reminded me how peacefully quiet - and very different my own life is.
My days are long past of days I’d be found in bar in San Francisco to a packed house of filled with ‘dress-to-kill’ people….scoping out who’s there, wearing what…. (but there was a time).
JJ writes….
“When did you know you were dead? I’m asking you a question that I know you can never answer. It is now ten years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years since your death, and I’m writing you this from Mexico City, under grave obligation. It is not a letter, since I know you cannot reply; maybe it’s another monologue, certainly it does not require a second choice; let’s call it plainsong then. This is the chant recalling your life, it is fiction, it is biography, it is transfiguration”.
“There was no middle ground with you, which makes your own endless moral ambivalence all the more frustrating now I come to review it. You had no steady code of ethics, yet you dealt in absolutes. There were only those you esteemed, and those you detested, and I had the dubious luck of being pinched between the two like loose cargo on deck, thrown between prow and stern on turbulent seas. I’m not sure what I ever did to earn your desire or deserve your contempt, but I took comfort in knowing that this was how you acted with any number of people. I know I wasn’t the only person who left your presence, seething, and cursing, and to “my mother, calling you ‘fit to burn’”.
“Looking about me now, ten years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years since your death, acknowledging this indefatigable era of puerile talking heads who have clawed their way to infamy, with a little of manufactured outrages, stoking, their phony, moral panics, I can’t help thinking that you were a sort of John the Baptist for them all. I don’t mean that, as a compliment, only a thought that comes to mind when I think of the world where left to deal with now”.
“But these aren’t things that are most pronounced when you are in love, they are truths, which reveal themselves over time, like the bones of a skeleton as the flesh rots away. Somehow it’s been a decade since that first fuck and I don’t know where all the time has gone. Perhaps the heat of the affair has burned it all up? It’s like that sad scene in ‘The Blue Angel’ where the once-dignified Emil Jennings serves Marlene Dietrich as her handmaid, testing the temperature of her curling tongs on the pages of a wall calendar. He clamps the jaws of the tongs down on the date, scorching away day after day, month, after month, until years are elided in a montage that lasts no more than a minute. This is how the years have gone by”.
“I didn’t want you ever to think you had won me, that it was all in the bag. And I was more aware that for you, the thrill was in the kill, not the feast. In that way, at least we were both very alike”.
John looked so “vainglorious” to JJ…
He felt something like love ….
“There’s something too painful in remembering how full of potential everything seemed back then when the world was ours”.
Spicy, swishy, sassy, sexy, sleazy, kinky, and at times campy….
….a coming-of-age look at the countercultural millennial lifestyles.
It was good —
Ha….but made me ‘feel’ old!
January 16, 2022
There's lots to love about this finger-on-the-pulse queer millennial tale with its hipster vibe, its cast of youthful models, artists, writers, and its angsty first love story.
But something about the writing felt a bit forced and laboured to me: 'heaving your gangly build, unwieldy as a bicycle frame, up on a makeshift stage', 'you were like a found photograph, black and white, black and white, of a little boy, bundled onto the Kindertransport by his desperate mother', 'you sealed the cave [i.e. the bedroom] by dragging another piece of plywood over the abyss, like the rock rolled over Christ's tomb' - this is personal taste but I'd have pencilled through all those clumsy similes, as well as the gratuitous and rather tasteless Holocaust reference.
Stylistic niggles aside, though, this is a hip and cool take on the lost love narrative - and what a great cover!
Thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley
But something about the writing felt a bit forced and laboured to me: 'heaving your gangly build, unwieldy as a bicycle frame, up on a makeshift stage', 'you were like a found photograph, black and white, black and white, of a little boy, bundled onto the Kindertransport by his desperate mother', 'you sealed the cave [i.e. the bedroom] by dragging another piece of plywood over the abyss, like the rock rolled over Christ's tomb' - this is personal taste but I'd have pencilled through all those clumsy similes, as well as the gratuitous and rather tasteless Holocaust reference.
Stylistic niggles aside, though, this is a hip and cool take on the lost love narrative - and what a great cover!
Thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley
July 26, 2022
This was a bit of a complicated one for me. There’s lots of things about this book that I loved… the locations, the references to places in London now long gone that I also used to know and love, the pace of life in both London and NYC that vividly reminded me of my own 20s - living in London, but spending a lot of time across the Atlantic.
However… the writing is very dense. Especially early on in the book, which meant it took a little too long for me to bond with it. In places I would go so far as to say it felt overwritten.
But definitely read it and make up your own minds!
However… the writing is very dense. Especially early on in the book, which meant it took a little too long for me to bond with it. In places I would go so far as to say it felt overwritten.
But definitely read it and make up your own minds!
January 5, 2023
It is important to note that the majority of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on bigotry, the death of an animal, animal abuse, substance abuse, financial insecurity, promiscuity, poverty, graphic depictions of sexual acts, grief, the sexual acts of a minor, & others.
Please note that for the sake of my being unaware of how the main character—JJ—would like to be addressed I will be employing ‘they/them’ pronouns.
JJ was in love once, that is what they suppose, though it’s with uncertainty & something like a catharsis that they type out a book formatted recollection of their time with the man who was an obtuse villain whom everyone enjoyed sexually encountering but whom no one desired to know on a deeper level. Perchance should you wonder, as JJ does, what is deeper than the confines of our physical insides, I feel that the discussion is pointless. There are two sides of the same coin & neither is necessarily wrong. One can be in love with a soul, a body, an entity’s whole; none of it really matters because in the end we can drop dead at the flip of a crusted silver dime & be gone forever after.
I will be upfront & state that I was instantly enamoured with this story. This is one of the few—if not the only—case wherein a prologue has enticed me to read on; sweetly drawing me in with a writing style that was heavily prosed without being excessively vapid for the sake of keeping a word count. However, upon reaching the 30 percent mark I began to lose interest in what the author was presenting; I simply did not care. Therefore, should you have come upon my little review sent into the void of the inter-webs, please note that my sentiments are purely subjective. This is not necessarily a bad book nor does it present a necessarily bad story.
JJ is someone who is incredibly naive while being willfully ignorant, almost seeking to place themselves into situations wherein they are tumbled like dry leaves. They abhor work—they have no ethic for that if we’re being honest—& spend all their time squatting at friends’ houses until they decide on a new location to sustain their nightlife needs. The flamboyance of life is not lost on JJ, they take full advantage of the freedoms of youth yet, in all the time that has passed since the introductory paragraphs, leading us to the moment we encounter this written eulogy to a dead lover, JJ has made zero progress in developing a sense of self.
All that being said, I couldn’t finish this book because the gratuitous use of drugs as though casual encounters of an ice-cream truck in summer, put me off. That’s on me & has nothing to do with the quality of the work, I simply do not care to read about chapters on the end of someone popping all manner of pills for the simple pleasure of doing so while they bum off their friends who are trying to make their way in the world. We all live different realities & I am certainly not ignorant to the fact that this book presents one facet of an otherwise endless realm of lived experiences. However, in combination with the fluctuant & detrimental use of substances, there were so many scenes where very graphic sexual encounters were described that I realized very early on that this was not the book I thought it was going to be.
Once I hit the 60 percent mark I began to skim the remainder of the book. I didn’t have it in me to read about the detailed descriptions of male genitals as JJ reminisces about the nude pictures they had been sent. I acknowledge that some of these earlier encounters were pertinent to the book—I suppose one could say that each scene was pertinent given whom we know JJ to be—yet, once again, I found myself reading something that I would not have selected for myself had I known that sexual encounters were to be described with such specific detail.
At the end of the day, this is not a bad book. This is a case wherein I am not the target audience & I recognize that this work will find its way to those readers who will adore every aspect of it. The author is a dedicated & tender writer, I felt very moved by certain passages & immediately immersed in the narrative. However, I was hoping to see more of what was expressed in the prologue. I was hoping for this story to be just as tender as the prose. I suppose that is quite like reality; we might hold out hope for something as much as we wish but, in truth, we come upon things unprepared.
Thank you to NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing, & Lauren John Joseph for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Please note that for the sake of my being unaware of how the main character—JJ—would like to be addressed I will be employing ‘they/them’ pronouns.
JJ was in love once, that is what they suppose, though it’s with uncertainty & something like a catharsis that they type out a book formatted recollection of their time with the man who was an obtuse villain whom everyone enjoyed sexually encountering but whom no one desired to know on a deeper level. Perchance should you wonder, as JJ does, what is deeper than the confines of our physical insides, I feel that the discussion is pointless. There are two sides of the same coin & neither is necessarily wrong. One can be in love with a soul, a body, an entity’s whole; none of it really matters because in the end we can drop dead at the flip of a crusted silver dime & be gone forever after.
I will be upfront & state that I was instantly enamoured with this story. This is one of the few—if not the only—case wherein a prologue has enticed me to read on; sweetly drawing me in with a writing style that was heavily prosed without being excessively vapid for the sake of keeping a word count. However, upon reaching the 30 percent mark I began to lose interest in what the author was presenting; I simply did not care. Therefore, should you have come upon my little review sent into the void of the inter-webs, please note that my sentiments are purely subjective. This is not necessarily a bad book nor does it present a necessarily bad story.
JJ is someone who is incredibly naive while being willfully ignorant, almost seeking to place themselves into situations wherein they are tumbled like dry leaves. They abhor work—they have no ethic for that if we’re being honest—& spend all their time squatting at friends’ houses until they decide on a new location to sustain their nightlife needs. The flamboyance of life is not lost on JJ, they take full advantage of the freedoms of youth yet, in all the time that has passed since the introductory paragraphs, leading us to the moment we encounter this written eulogy to a dead lover, JJ has made zero progress in developing a sense of self.
All that being said, I couldn’t finish this book because the gratuitous use of drugs as though casual encounters of an ice-cream truck in summer, put me off. That’s on me & has nothing to do with the quality of the work, I simply do not care to read about chapters on the end of someone popping all manner of pills for the simple pleasure of doing so while they bum off their friends who are trying to make their way in the world. We all live different realities & I am certainly not ignorant to the fact that this book presents one facet of an otherwise endless realm of lived experiences. However, in combination with the fluctuant & detrimental use of substances, there were so many scenes where very graphic sexual encounters were described that I realized very early on that this was not the book I thought it was going to be.
Once I hit the 60 percent mark I began to skim the remainder of the book. I didn’t have it in me to read about the detailed descriptions of male genitals as JJ reminisces about the nude pictures they had been sent. I acknowledge that some of these earlier encounters were pertinent to the book—I suppose one could say that each scene was pertinent given whom we know JJ to be—yet, once again, I found myself reading something that I would not have selected for myself had I known that sexual encounters were to be described with such specific detail.
At the end of the day, this is not a bad book. This is a case wherein I am not the target audience & I recognize that this work will find its way to those readers who will adore every aspect of it. The author is a dedicated & tender writer, I felt very moved by certain passages & immediately immersed in the narrative. However, I was hoping to see more of what was expressed in the prologue. I was hoping for this story to be just as tender as the prose. I suppose that is quite like reality; we might hold out hope for something as much as we wish but, in truth, we come upon things unprepared.
Thank you to NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing, & Lauren John Joseph for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
August 14, 2021
At Certain Points We Touch is a novel about remembering the past, doomed love, and a millennial stumble through friendship and cities, as a writer tries to tell the story of their dead lover. A trans writer living in Mexico realises that it is the anniversary of the death of a man they loved, and starts to write the story of them, together and apart, and the messy, toxic, desperate affair they had.
This is a masterful novel, sharp and clever, that explores how we tell stories and what millennial queer life is like, almost haunted by the ghosts of previous queer culture in London, San Francisco, and New York. At times it feels like an older novel, but then it throws in modern references and muses on the longevity of digital culture, and you remember that this is recent. In fact, the parts about digital preservation were some of my favourite bits of writing in the book, musing on how a MySpace profile could endure if civilisations couldn't.
You know from the start that it is building towards Thomas James' death, and you really understand how the narrator wants to hold off getting there and telling a death they weren't there for as much as they want to unfold the story. The book is also a knowing wink towards writing and autofiction, considering what is memory and story even when something is meant to be 'what happened', but this is combined with exploits and community and stumbling into things whilst young in ways that stop it just feeling like a book about writing a book.
With an almost haunting sense of the recent past and grief, At Certain Points We Touch is a novel that really paints a portrait, not just of the narrator's lover, but of the narrator themselves, of cities and bad rooms, and of growing up as a millennial and traversing different kinds of culture and community.
This is a masterful novel, sharp and clever, that explores how we tell stories and what millennial queer life is like, almost haunted by the ghosts of previous queer culture in London, San Francisco, and New York. At times it feels like an older novel, but then it throws in modern references and muses on the longevity of digital culture, and you remember that this is recent. In fact, the parts about digital preservation were some of my favourite bits of writing in the book, musing on how a MySpace profile could endure if civilisations couldn't.
You know from the start that it is building towards Thomas James' death, and you really understand how the narrator wants to hold off getting there and telling a death they weren't there for as much as they want to unfold the story. The book is also a knowing wink towards writing and autofiction, considering what is memory and story even when something is meant to be 'what happened', but this is combined with exploits and community and stumbling into things whilst young in ways that stop it just feeling like a book about writing a book.
With an almost haunting sense of the recent past and grief, At Certain Points We Touch is a novel that really paints a portrait, not just of the narrator's lover, but of the narrator themselves, of cities and bad rooms, and of growing up as a millennial and traversing different kinds of culture and community.
October 13, 2021
Ooh, I found this disappointing. I'm pleased to see that others enjoyed it but I found this almost impossible to engage with. There was no narrative drive to speak of - the story just seemed an interminable stream of pages with no ebb or flow or discernible structure - and the central axis (that two people who had no common ground whatsoever but some kind of intoxicating sexual chemistry in a brief open relationship for a couple of months) had no believability whatsoever.
I found the author unable to covey why this particular man was so addictive to the central character, which kind of undermined the story as it just wasn't believable.
HOWEVER. I can see that the writer is talented with a keen eye (hand?) for fresh contemporary observation and an impressive and intriguing lean towards showcasing bohemian life and centring those who are often overlooked in mainstream literature. particular scenes, such as a Barbra Streisand act whilst high on Vicodin - were fun and well observed but like I say, the individual passages could not add up to a cohesive whole.
I found the author unable to covey why this particular man was so addictive to the central character, which kind of undermined the story as it just wasn't believable.
HOWEVER. I can see that the writer is talented with a keen eye (hand?) for fresh contemporary observation and an impressive and intriguing lean towards showcasing bohemian life and centring those who are often overlooked in mainstream literature. particular scenes, such as a Barbra Streisand act whilst high on Vicodin - were fun and well observed but like I say, the individual passages could not add up to a cohesive whole.
September 24, 2022
-Disclaimer: I won this book for free through Goodreads giveaways in exchange for an honest review.-
Incessant descriptions & lustful characters
The writing has a lot of references to things like places around the world, people, and literature. There's way too much detail (and nasty at that) to the point you don't care about the story anymore. One part describes smelling arse/ball sweat on others' underwear. Another part describes using a T-shirt to clean up spunk in the same motion you'd use to scoop up guacamole on a tortilla chip.
Clearly, Thomas means something to the main character. Thomas is a character with no redeeming qualities. Yet the reader is expected to feel something when his inevitable death comes. The plot dragged and was doomed from the start. Overall, I felt no connection to the book.
Incessant descriptions & lustful characters
The writing has a lot of references to things like places around the world, people, and literature. There's way too much detail (and nasty at that) to the point you don't care about the story anymore. One part describes smelling arse/ball sweat on others' underwear. Another part describes using a T-shirt to clean up spunk in the same motion you'd use to scoop up guacamole on a tortilla chip.
Clearly, Thomas means something to the main character. Thomas is a character with no redeeming qualities. Yet the reader is expected to feel something when his inevitable death comes. The plot dragged and was doomed from the start. Overall, I felt no connection to the book.
September 17, 2021
A thrilling and heartrending tale of glamour, art, and grief by the inimitable Lauren John Joseph. At Certain Points We Touch is an unflinching roman à clef about what it means to love someone and be devastated by their loss, without looking away from the fact that much of that person's character was unseemly. Gorgeous, funny, and tragic in equal measures.
Read
May 23, 2023so so good
October 24, 2022
Thank you to the publisher for providing me an advanced e-copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
At Certain Points We Touch is a stunning, opulent, indulgent, and mortifying debut novel. I am deeply impressed with Lauren John Joseph’s candidness and courage. This epic, but immensely personal, eulogy for their lost but haunting lover is not quite like anything I have ever read.
It’s the story of an aspiring writer attempting to remember and enshrine a previous lover spanning years and continents. Through their flowing, mystifying pros I felt every raw emotion of the cast of complicated anti-heroes and genuinely real characters/people. I hesitate to say ‘characters’ there, both because I am uncertain how much this work toes the line of biographical, but also because they seemed so honestly real to me. Beyond the raw emotional core of the novel is a fantastical presentation of lyrical writing and repeating motifs that stoped me cold every time I encountered them. “When did you know you were dead?”, “It is not ten years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years from your death.”, “Back now.”. Each of these phrases binds together a story that is about both reality and what we imagine to be real (about ourselves and others). “Back now.” I will never hear these words the same way. To that end I need to emphasize that this book achieves in that special way that only rare books can: it changed me. In every practical sense I am the same person I was before reading this, but in all the important ways I am newer, wiser, more afraid, and more resolute. Every single page is heavy with meaning and though the language is admittedly pretentious at times, it is in the best possible way.
I do not think this books is “for everyone” but of those of us who this is a good fit, it feels like we were meant to read it. Or perhaps this fell into my lap at just the exact right time; who's to say? I was pleased to see mention of Ocean Vuong around the 85% mark because there are so many things about At Certain Points We Touch that reminded me of Vuong’s work. The poetic pros, the intense (at times graphic) imagery, the commitment to memorialized past, and even the narrative structure. I am convinced that any fans of Vuong’s On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous will find a new favorite here.
I have already pre-ordered a physical copy so that I can re-visit this story many more times in my future.
Lauren John Joseph, thank you. What else can there be to say? Thank you.
I hope this novel gets all the praise it is due, and I hope the members of Booker Prize selection committee are watching.
At Certain Points We Touch is a stunning, opulent, indulgent, and mortifying debut novel. I am deeply impressed with Lauren John Joseph’s candidness and courage. This epic, but immensely personal, eulogy for their lost but haunting lover is not quite like anything I have ever read.
It’s the story of an aspiring writer attempting to remember and enshrine a previous lover spanning years and continents. Through their flowing, mystifying pros I felt every raw emotion of the cast of complicated anti-heroes and genuinely real characters/people. I hesitate to say ‘characters’ there, both because I am uncertain how much this work toes the line of biographical, but also because they seemed so honestly real to me. Beyond the raw emotional core of the novel is a fantastical presentation of lyrical writing and repeating motifs that stoped me cold every time I encountered them. “When did you know you were dead?”, “It is not ten years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years from your death.”, “Back now.”. Each of these phrases binds together a story that is about both reality and what we imagine to be real (about ourselves and others). “Back now.” I will never hear these words the same way. To that end I need to emphasize that this book achieves in that special way that only rare books can: it changed me. In every practical sense I am the same person I was before reading this, but in all the important ways I am newer, wiser, more afraid, and more resolute. Every single page is heavy with meaning and though the language is admittedly pretentious at times, it is in the best possible way.
I do not think this books is “for everyone” but of those of us who this is a good fit, it feels like we were meant to read it. Or perhaps this fell into my lap at just the exact right time; who's to say? I was pleased to see mention of Ocean Vuong around the 85% mark because there are so many things about At Certain Points We Touch that reminded me of Vuong’s work. The poetic pros, the intense (at times graphic) imagery, the commitment to memorialized past, and even the narrative structure. I am convinced that any fans of Vuong’s On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous will find a new favorite here.
I have already pre-ordered a physical copy so that I can re-visit this story many more times in my future.
Lauren John Joseph, thank you. What else can there be to say? Thank you.
I hope this novel gets all the praise it is due, and I hope the members of Booker Prize selection committee are watching.
Read
November 27, 2022"you died before I fell out of love with you" is the pain at the heart of this memoir/tribute to a fallen lover. And author Lauren John Joseph fulfills their responsibility to memorialize the beloved dead. Protagonist "JJ/Liza" is a well read, smart writer whose voice tone is historically aware. They travel the trash/queer underground circuit from London to San Francisco to New York, Berlin and Mexico City with a crew of equally engaged marginalized survivors who read the best books and meet the best people, while go-go dancing, tricking, eating the most romantic cheap French fries and looking for their places in the world. Bambi Lake, Penny Arcade, Maggie Nelson, Kathy Acker, Burroughs and also establishment darlings Joan Didion and Ocean Vuong all make appearances and exist as anchors for a subcultural scene that knows from whence it comes. The old avant-garde never dies, apparently and thank goodness, it just continues the quest to love, to be heard, and to really live.
September 13, 2022
I wanted to love this book because of the subject, but the writing style just did not work for me.
January 12, 2023
scraping by, performance art, drag
queer sex, gay, trans
dying early, growing up/living on
queer sex, gay, trans
dying early, growing up/living on
June 19, 2023
currently unfollowing some booktokers because of failed expectations
March 15, 2025
This must be what Sally Rooney feels like to people who don’t find her annoying.
August 26, 2022
I don’t really know how I feel about this. The writing is indulgent to the point that it often takes away from the story, however this fits with the character of the narrator. Lauren John Joseph is exploring some interesting themes here, using fiction as a medium, around what we do with memory and grief, and how looking back at our lives changes what we see, and I appreciated the nuance with which they tackle this subject matter, especially around the things that we can discover about ourselves when looking back at the people we used to know. That being said, I really didn’t like the epilogue as the final image of the book, and the format as a letter meant that there were some narrative threads that I wish had been tied a little tighter. Overall, I appreciated what the author was trying to do, and I wish that the indulgence of the writing style didn’t bring me out of the story as much.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for a review!
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for a review!
January 2, 2022
I found this book really annoying, but I have a sick sense that it's because if I tried to write a book, it would be like this but less good. You know when you don't like someone and you know in your heart it's because they embody some of your less attractive qualities and you don't like to be reminded of it.
I, too, would write "I have been reading Ocean Vuong" because it sounds classier than "I'm reading On Earth we're briefly gorgeous" or whatever. It gives a sense of a wider cultural knowledge, as if Bibby has, of course, read all of Ocean Vuong, probably more than once, and she is much more capable than you are of connecting all the cultural dots and applying the insights to her own life.
A generous reader might suggest this is deliberate, symbolising Bibby's class anxiety - in fact the more I think about it, the more that makes sense to me, and the more inclined I feel to be that generous reader.
One thing I did really appreciate is the way that gender is sort of background to start with, and becomes more central as the book progresses. In some ways Bibby's gender and the way that informs her romantic and sexual life is the real plot of the book, or at least forms the meat of it, and this is presented so subtly that I hardly realised, despite my predilection to notice such things, until I was completely devastated by it. At the same time, Thomas James is so awful that it's hard to read about him as a love object, and Bibby is not much more likeable.
I did often want one of Bibby's friends to give her a stern talking to, rather than just radiating gentle, loving disappointment. I hate narrators without agency, who seem incapable of making good choices for themselves, who drift along at the mercy of whatever current tugs at them. We've all had sex we shouldn't have had: lust clouds - well, everything. But Bibby can't even make the choice not to go out in public with Thomas James, even while explicitly acknowledging that it would be bad to be seen on the arm of her best friend's boyfriend. And she seems shocked and hurt by the idea that her friends and lovers might be annoyed that she lives rent free on their sofas for long periods, while making zero effort to change anything about her life. Absolutely infuriating.
Now I've confused myself. Do I think this is good, or not? Do I hate the book, or the narrator? Can I separate the two? I honestly don't know. As my first book of 2022, it's not a good omen.
My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.
I, too, would write "I have been reading Ocean Vuong" because it sounds classier than "I'm reading On Earth we're briefly gorgeous" or whatever. It gives a sense of a wider cultural knowledge, as if Bibby has, of course, read all of Ocean Vuong, probably more than once, and she is much more capable than you are of connecting all the cultural dots and applying the insights to her own life.
A generous reader might suggest this is deliberate, symbolising Bibby's class anxiety - in fact the more I think about it, the more that makes sense to me, and the more inclined I feel to be that generous reader.
One thing I did really appreciate is the way that gender is sort of background to start with, and becomes more central as the book progresses. In some ways Bibby's gender and the way that informs her romantic and sexual life is the real plot of the book, or at least forms the meat of it, and this is presented so subtly that I hardly realised, despite my predilection to notice such things, until I was completely devastated by it. At the same time, Thomas James is so awful that it's hard to read about him as a love object, and Bibby is not much more likeable.
I did often want one of Bibby's friends to give her a stern talking to, rather than just radiating gentle, loving disappointment. I hate narrators without agency, who seem incapable of making good choices for themselves, who drift along at the mercy of whatever current tugs at them. We've all had sex we shouldn't have had: lust clouds - well, everything. But Bibby can't even make the choice not to go out in public with Thomas James, even while explicitly acknowledging that it would be bad to be seen on the arm of her best friend's boyfriend. And she seems shocked and hurt by the idea that her friends and lovers might be annoyed that she lives rent free on their sofas for long periods, while making zero effort to change anything about her life. Absolutely infuriating.
Now I've confused myself. Do I think this is good, or not? Do I hate the book, or the narrator? Can I separate the two? I honestly don't know. As my first book of 2022, it's not a good omen.
My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.
April 7, 2022
I continually find myself on the fence about unlikeable protagonists; if there's a distinctive and compelling reason to dislike them that adds to the story then I usually enjoy it, but this...the narrator is apathetic and despondent which as a similarly world-weary twenty-something, I empathize with strongly, but rather than do something about it she just bemoans her situation and flits from place to place, couch surfing at her friends' expense, searching for something in self-confessed naivety. She is also in love with, and spends the entire book writing to, an even more unlikeable character, and it's impossible to see why she is so addicted to him. The narrative delves slightly into her backstory which begins to shed light on her nature but there's not enough to make her sympathetic, or more unlikeable, or anything really. I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing, or if this style of character just isn't for me.
Despite this, I loved the author's writing. Her prose is tender and lyrical, yet also raw and unflinching as it jumps between love and pain, living and grieving, memory and the fleeting nature of time. I felt totally immersed in the bohemian settings of London and New York and queer culture. My knowledge and understanding of the LGBT+ community is fairly limited to my own experiences, and this definitely felt like an important and poignant look into queer experiences as I try to diversify my reading.
Overall, while I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book, I'd definitely recommend the author, and I'm interested to see what they bring out next.
Thanks to the publisher for a reading copy in exchange for an honest review!
Despite this, I loved the author's writing. Her prose is tender and lyrical, yet also raw and unflinching as it jumps between love and pain, living and grieving, memory and the fleeting nature of time. I felt totally immersed in the bohemian settings of London and New York and queer culture. My knowledge and understanding of the LGBT+ community is fairly limited to my own experiences, and this definitely felt like an important and poignant look into queer experiences as I try to diversify my reading.
Overall, while I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book, I'd definitely recommend the author, and I'm interested to see what they bring out next.
Thanks to the publisher for a reading copy in exchange for an honest review!
March 13, 2022
I was provided with a digital ARC of this book thanks to the publishing house, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ), , in exchange for an honest review.
This book was not an easy read under every aspect, but I think it is an important novel nevertheless. This novel talks about a trans writer recollecting through letters and memories a relationship with an ex lover. A love that marked their life and made them believe in something close to love.
I will say that basically nothing was wrong with this book, except the fact that I just didn't connect with it or its characters. I found the character of Thomas James to be very far from my personal taste and I can't tell you why, but I couldn't understand why the main character kept coming back to him.
The writing in this one was really wonderful, I have to say that, and that was one of the reasons I thought I was going to like this book way more than I did.
The main voice I liked, the other characters never stood out in my opinion, and while this is surely a search into the main character's life, I would have loved to see more of what surrounded the rest.
So yeah, I still think this is a very good novel, just not something that met my taste, sadly.
This book was not an easy read under every aspect, but I think it is an important novel nevertheless. This novel talks about a trans writer recollecting through letters and memories a relationship with an ex lover. A love that marked their life and made them believe in something close to love.
I will say that basically nothing was wrong with this book, except the fact that I just didn't connect with it or its characters. I found the character of Thomas James to be very far from my personal taste and I can't tell you why, but I couldn't understand why the main character kept coming back to him.
The writing in this one was really wonderful, I have to say that, and that was one of the reasons I thought I was going to like this book way more than I did.
The main voice I liked, the other characters never stood out in my opinion, and while this is surely a search into the main character's life, I would have loved to see more of what surrounded the rest.
So yeah, I still think this is a very good novel, just not something that met my taste, sadly.
dnf
March 2, 2022i am getting truly Comfortable with the idea of leaving books behind this year, but i'm sad this is one of them. i requested a copy from netgalley after seeing glowing reviews, and sat down on march first (phantom february twenty-ninth) in the hopes of reading it all in one feverish sitting, and then just -- couldn't.
the writing felt self-conscious, overworked and overloaded, and a lot of the elements i found most compelling i'd already read & loved in lote ? so am going to put it aside & move on, maybe for now, maybe for good.
the writing felt self-conscious, overworked and overloaded, and a lot of the elements i found most compelling i'd already read & loved in lote ? so am going to put it aside & move on, maybe for now, maybe for good.
February 12, 2024
while reading this I had the same feeling as if I was watching my friend make bad life decisions. “No, don’t get back to him, he’s really not nice to you” was all I wanted to tell JJ. Nice little torturous book,that I couldn’t quite put down, even though I hated most of the characters. It quite felt like Sufjan Stevens’s songs, so cruel but captivating, especially his Drawn to the blood: “what did I do to deserve this?”
January 2, 2024
The writing in this book is so so beautiful.
In this mournful goodbye letter written to a lost and long-dead lover, Lauren John Joseph explores the intricacies of queer identity, lust, non-monogamous relationships and mostly heartbreak. A paradoxically frenetic and melancholic story that defies some more conservative conceptions on love and identity.
In this mournful goodbye letter written to a lost and long-dead lover, Lauren John Joseph explores the intricacies of queer identity, lust, non-monogamous relationships and mostly heartbreak. A paradoxically frenetic and melancholic story that defies some more conservative conceptions on love and identity.
November 9, 2025
This is just so pretentious in a way that completely doesn't appeal to me. It's a story about a love affair that just doesn't make sense. The narrator is frustrating as it is but the fact that they call the worst man that they could ever imagine the love of their life is just completely incomprehensible. Honestly if it wasn't a bookclub read I wouldn't waste my time.
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