This is a book full of diversity, centred on two queer Asian American women. Eleanor’s heritage is Japanese and German Jewish, whilst Leena is of Indian descent. The storyline covers many difficult family situations for them both and the depth of the writing about cultural impact on life defining decisions really spoke to me. It’s also packed full of queer culture and full of the realities of life for queer people from their college years through to their mid-thirties.
At its heart this book is about love, lust, relationships and friendship. The way the story is told we meet the main characters at college in Boston. This begins an inter connected journey for them both, wherein we get to catch up with them periodically at different points of their lives. This time shift is done really well, as is the change in viewpoints so we get to understand each character in more depth. The timeline means we experience the MCs viewpoints on many important landmarks in recent American history, which only aids in bringing you into the narrative further.
This book is long, but it’s worth it. A word of warning, the beginning of the book is quite jarring as you get used to the language used, but stick with it. It’s been a long time since a book left me speechless and it’s taken me a while to gather my thoughts after the ending but I would happily recommend this to anyone looking for something different to the usual wlw romance.
I received an e-ARC via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.
LGBTQ+ Reader 