I took a chance on this queer literary fiction, and ended up DNF’ing around 15%. I feel like I should like this more than I did. There are some 90s vibes that I’m old enough to nostalgize with, and I highlighted a passage about trying which seemed kind of wise. However, as I kept reading, it felt like this book was that quote. It kept trying things out, but a very low percentage of the tries worked—there were a lot of names and people with no names that were ‘the writer’ or ’the taxi driver’ and everyone was constantly being assessed for their fuckability. While I can appreciate the fact that Paul was magnanimous in that regard, it also got reductive and repetitive pretty quick. And I know that Paul was in college for queer theory, but when a conversation slipped into a whole-ass formal lecture about cover songs and pronouns, my eyes glazed over a bit.

I kept reading long enough to appreciate Paul’s bitter musings on his (their?) shapeshifter state, but wanted more of that and instead got some asterisks and a fairy tale flashback scene?  Most times when I give litfic a chance, I am bewildered and underwhelmed by turns.