This book fell into my hands at the perfect time. I have desperately been wanting more stories about pockets of queer solace in poverty. About the grime in queerness and the pain that surrounds it in spaces that are inundated with suffering.  It sounds like a hyper-specific want, well yes but mostly no. Poor gays and what we do to live and love.

Douglas Stuart's stories never tip me over the edge with emotion. I always feel like a 7/8ths full glass of (sugary) milk in a cold apartment building, and because of that this rides the 4.5 to 5 line. But it truly is excellent all around. The comedy is brilliant, the construction is one of a kind, and the love is so honest. I most appreciated how Douglas painted ignorance within suffering. There is a complicated leniency we lead with as marginalized people in these marginalized spaces and this book captured that realistically (even up until the end when there exists a shift in what we accept). In places of suffering and struggle of course we hurt, and we'll hurt, but we are not alone—  and in that, there can/will be beauty. A vitally important piece of work.