Dustin

Y'all I hated this. The characters are insufferable and the writing is always doing the most. Narrated by someone who thinks metaphor is a competitive sport. Somehow both overwritten and underwritten at the same time. A rare combo. Tried so hard to be poetic it just ended up tripping over itself and face-planting into a thesaurus. Like, I get it. You're smarter than me. I tried, I really did. But by chapter 5 I was completely checked out. Just not for me.

Short, sour, and psychologically unwell, just like me.

Perfectly captures that quiet, long, unspooling, stretch of summer where time softens at the edges. Days of sunburnt shoulders, wet bathing suits, horror movie sleepovers, and that weird teenage brain soup purgatory where you start to understand just enough to ruin your peace. The aching shift in friendships and the weight of change. Nothing much happens yet everything happens. Beneath the softness, it explores internalized misogyny and the double standards of how easily girls are left to bear the fallout of choices made by two people. It tenderly delves into the ripple effects of loss, the kind that settles into the walls, into the hollow space between mother and daughter. It's a story of girlhood.

A love letter to closeted queer teens everywhere. Soft sapphic magic wrapped in seafoam and yearning. So cute and wholesome it made my cold dead heart do a little wiggle. MORGAN AND KELTIE FOREVER!!!! 😭😭

If fear is a monster, Nat Cassidy is the one who taught it how to speak. This was my introduction to his work and I already know that I would follow his words straight into the belly of the beast with a smile on my face if it meant feeling something this sharp and soul-deep again. I was not expecting to cry, but I did. Nat Cassidy the man that you ARE!!!