Jaw dropping. As someone with a ton of fear and anxiety around pregnancy, this really got under my skin. I was so sickened by the idea of an unwanted pregnancy, with the added horror of gender dysphoria. The author did such a good job creating the constant unease and discomfort.

This will be sticking with me for awhile. Horror/gore never really shocks me anymore, but this fucked me up a little. Like I was struggling to finish the sentences with my hand on my mouth gasping in horror. I’m impressed and obsessed.

could not look away. i feel so much heartache for our lion. this story is everything. one my favorite reads since i can remember. review to come

Not my favorite of Melissa Broder’s work. I usually love a book with no-plot-just-vibes, but this one just didn’t hit like I expected. Her writing is incredible: blunt, brutally honest, funny, and poignant all the same. I just didn’t love the thread about how hard it is for her to have a chronically ill husband (admittedly, it is hard, she understands this, she knows his burden having the illness is heavier,) but still I’m not particularly interested in the caregiver perspective vs. the disabled perspective at this point in time.

That being said — I have always LOVED Broder’s 2016 essay “Thoughts On Open Marriage and Illness: ON BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH ILLNESS,” which details the challenges her and her husband have faced as an interabled couple and how they cope and keep their marriage and love strong. Love and marriage don’t need to take one specific form; I find it beautiful the creative ways they’ve built their life around her husband’s disability. It’s an essay I frequently revisit when thinking about my own relationships, how I’ve had an open relationship proposed in the context of disability, how I want to be loved in the future. Very much so reminds me of the resolution to Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.