i have three words. what the fuck.

3 stars, including the star for me for finishing. It really took everything for me not to DNF and honestly if I wasn’t reading this for a separate challenge I probably would have reshelved it for a later date. The writing, story and themes were good, it just took a long time to become interested after the initial beginning but when I stopped to continue the next day it felt exhausting to finish those 250 pages.

I don't think I've read a book quite like this before, and I loved it. It doesn't have much plot to speak of, but we get to peer into a life that feels incredibly real and complex. Sometimes these slice-of-life books end up feeling like "okay, what's the point?" but this one was compulsively readable and compelling, leaving the reader wanting to really sink into the questions it raises.

I think one of the strengths of this book was that it wasn't trying to do too much: it's simply a portrait of a refreshingly real woman struggling through a period of her life, looking both backwards and forwards, trying to figure out where she fits in the world, in her family and friends, and even within her own self. I liked that Max doesn't have very many outside worries - she comes from a wealthy family, has a secure housing and job situation, and a family that's overall quite supportive of her identity and transition. She doesn't have the roadblocks that so many queer people have in life, and while it's not necessarily the most realistic, that allows us to really focus on what this book wants to talk about. In a world where trans people (or just this particular trans person) have access to all that and those advantages are a given, what are the specific challenges Max faces and questions she has to confront?

To begin with, she has many of the same concerns so many 30-somethings in her circle would have: a boring unfulfilling job, existential questions about the nature of family and parenthood, whether she wants children, what to look for in a partner, how to navigate delicate family and friend dynamics, her partner's annoying friends and annoying partners of her friends. There's something so real and relatable about the interactions Max has with everyone around her - you feel like she could be one of your friends, someone in your wider acquaintance group. As someone in her age group with a similar circle of queer wannabe artists in a big city environment, I related to her experiences with her friend group in an almost visceral way. "Half of queer culture is fronting as an artist while working in an office." Ooof!

But this book does so much more than make Max relatable on that level - it delves deep into what makes up our identities and doesn't leave us with any easy answers. Do we define who we are, or do others? Do we eventually meld with the simplified boxes we ascribe to ourselves for the sake of social fluency? To what extent are our identities defined by who we were and what we did a long time ago, and is there ever an opportunity to truly rewrite our identities? How does who we want to be relate to who we are? Can we ever truly make up for, move on from, or forget our past? To what extent do the relationships we choose to have and maintain define us?

These questions are exemplified by a conversation Max and Vincent have about queerness: he asks her whether she considers herself queer, as a cis-presenting straight woman - he suggests that her appearance and dating habits "[don't] feel so queer to [him]." Max's inner thoughts about that feel like one of the main cruxes of this book: "Identities don't mean much to me outside of their relationship with the material, and if I'm not performing queerness, if what I'm perceived to be is just a woman, and one who isn't trans or gay, then where does identity really take me? What cause does it serve?"

There are many more explorations of these themes in various permutations - one character wants to have a child to force himself to change into the person he wants to be, one woman uses the misogyny in her professional industry to assert her power over another woman, another struggles to reconcile his past abhorrent actions with who he imagines himself to be, a father's sense of self is shaken by facing his addiction issues. It's impossible to read this book and not take some time to ponder the deeply personal issues it brings up, even while it doesn't really take a strong stand on them but only brings up the questions.

This aspect alone, plus the wonderfully drawn characters, was enough to make me love this book, but another huge plus is that the writing itself is great. I'm not sure how Dinan does it, but the language used is so precise and incisive that it feels both real and straightforward, but also profound. I feel like I could read her writing on anything and it would be interesting, forcing me to look at things from perspectives I never saw, or never wanted to see.

There are also MANY themes other than what I've touched on here, and they're pretty much all done with equal nuance.

I would definitely recommend this book, but I would also encourage people to seek out trigger warnings, as there's some stuff that gets somewhat brutal and uncomfortably close to home at times.

This probably wouldn't have been a book I'd have picked up without the Pride 2026 readalong, and I'm so glad it came up and that I chose to read it!