I’ll be honest, for like the first half, maybe even more, it was kind of not boring per se, but uninteresting. Around the fourth chapter i was definitely more into it and i started understanding why characters such as Cherry acted the way they did. Though the book isn’t wordy or complex, it’s simple and easy to digest. You could definitely tell towards the end that the main character, Mona, definitely grew from her experiences and her grief. I will say I would’ve love to have read more about Eva and how she felt about all the things everyone experienced and maybe her side of the story, as the book mostly centered around her and Mona’s relationship at the beginning. Wasn’t a bad book at all, but it just didn’t blow me away as I thought it would. Last half of the book was probably my favorite as you could really tell how much the characters had realized their flaws and grew from their mistakes. In some way at the end you could also tell how much better the writing got as the main character realized her and her dad’s flaws.

For some reason I can’t put into words what I felt while reading this book and what I felt when I finished it. But all I can say is, that this is a beautiful testament? or ode? to love, fear, anger, family, found family, queerness, identity, and last but not least, life. Though it wasn’t a poem every word and every paragraph had its own meaning, it’s own way of expressing how Cyrus and the revolving characters in this book felt so deeply.

Some of my favorite lines from this exquisite book:

“Leila was, though. Passionate. She discerned everything from a wince, a sigh. When Leila's fingers first crept down and met an unconscious stiffening of my stomach, she read as robust an autobiography as I'll ever write. And then she added her own movement, her own chapters to it. She changed the text of my living.”

“Humans are just a long emptiness waiting to be filled.“