review forthcoming, i swear

ETA: alright, here we go:

this book is really good, okay. it's really, really good. i haven't read freud's dora, though now i'm definitely going to, but dora's voice in this book rings true. ironically, i suppose, because she repeats throughout the book:

Maybe that's part of my problem. I'm me, but I'm me like 50%. I'm out there, but I fade.

i think that, reading this at 17, just like dora, i probably have a different perspective than somebody who reads this at, like, 35. here's what dora has to say about being seventeen:

Seventeen is no place to be. You want to get out, you want to shake off a self like old dead skin. You want to take how things are and chuck it like a rock. You pierce your face or you tattoo your skin - anything to feel something beyond the numb of home. You invent clothes other people think are garbage. You get high. You meddle with sexuality. You stuff your ears with ear buds blasting music so loud it's beyond hearing, it's just the throb and heat and slam and pound and scream of bodies on the edge of adult.

and i feel vindicated, i think, by these queer teenage nightmares. they're immature, yeah; they're unapologetically teenagers. and even though i wouldn't want to hang out with them, it's nice to see.

i just love all the characters. honestly, i think they're what makes the book as strong as it is. because sometimes the events are a little too Edgy Teen for me: stripping naked in nordstrom's, giving the kids you're babysitting sticks of butter, slipping your shrink viagra? OK. Sounds like an Edgy Teen. but marlene, love of my life, and beautiful obsidian, and sweet annoying ave maria, and just, dora herself. a really authentic queer group of friends is what it is, and i love it. i love them a lot.

this was a nice little world to get sucked into for a while. i look forward to reading more of yuknavitch's work.