Wren
“There’s a motherfucker walking around right now. He getting up in the morning and he eating him a big breakfast. Then he goes and does whatever the fuck he does during the day. Then he probably gets him a piece of ass at the end of the night. This motherfucker killed our children. He popped them full of holes like a piece of chicken wire. Then he stood over them and blew their fucking brains out. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t live with myself while that son of a bitch is on this side of the dirt.”
I probably wouldn’t have picked up this book if it wasn’t for the Pagebound Spring 2026 Readalong, and I would have been worse off for it, because really, I’ve enjoyed it a lot. There was an aspect of it that made me uneasy from the get-go: the fact that it looked like the book was using queer pain and tragedy as learning material for two homophobic straight dudes to help them become better people. And it would have been very easy to spin this idea that way, however, S.A. Cosby’s execution of it convinced me to look past this layer. In fact, I felt the narrative pretty explicitly went into the direction of, “the pain and tragedy was not necessary, the dude should have been able to become better people without all this.”
Also, I’m genuinely all for portrayal of characters becoming better people. Maybe these fictional dudes will become aspirational for some real life dudes. Though hopefully with less murders and violence along the way!
I truly didn’t expect to get so invested in these characters, but I did practically from the first chapter. For a big part of the story, I actually paid only cursory attention to the investigative plot, being so caught up in their inner turmoil and struggles. That came back to bite me closer to the middle when that plot took central stage for a while. However, the story kept coming back to the more character-focused scenes again and again, and balancing the personal arcs with all the action and crime well enough, especially once it crossed into the second half and Mya and Tangerine both became a prominent presence, breaking up the testosterone party. All in all, barring those few hiccups near the middle, the story remained very engrossing for me throughout.
I very much enjoyed Cosby’s writing style, with the way he singled out sensory and visual details to bring more texture to every beat. It felt almost cinematic. In fact, a lot of pivotal beats were constructed in a manner that kind of begs to be transferred to the screen. I’m not a visual person at all and generally strongly prefer books to movies, but a few times I caught myself imagining what some frames could look like, what sort of opening shot would work for the current segment, what kind of music might be playing in the background. All in all, the writing was pretty immersive.
The only thing that sometimes took me out of it was the overuse of dialogue tags (”he said,” “she said”) where an action beat without the “said” would work just fine, or where no clarification was needed at all because it was already evident from the context and the character voice who was speaking. I know those dialogue tags are supposed to be invisible, but apparently, when there are too many, I can’t stop spotting them.
“There’s a motherfucker walking around right now. He getting up in the morning and he eating him a big breakfast. Then he goes and does whatever the fuck he does during the day. Then he probably gets him a piece of ass at the end of the night. This motherfucker killed our children. He popped them full of holes like a piece of chicken wire. Then he stood over them and blew their fucking brains out. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t live with myself while that son of a bitch is on this side of the dirt.”
I probably wouldn’t have picked up this book if it wasn’t for the Pagebound Spring 2026 Readalong, and I would have been worse off for it, because really, I’ve enjoyed it a lot. There was an aspect of it that made me uneasy from the get-go: the fact that it looked like the book was using queer pain and tragedy as learning material for two homophobic straight dudes to help them become better people. And it would have been very easy to spin this idea that way, however, S.A. Cosby’s execution of it convinced me to look past this layer. In fact, I felt the narrative pretty explicitly went into the direction of, “the pain and tragedy was not necessary, the dude should have been able to become better people without all this.”
Also, I’m genuinely all for portrayal of characters becoming better people. Maybe these fictional dudes will become aspirational for some real life dudes. Though hopefully with less murders and violence along the way!
I truly didn’t expect to get so invested in these characters, but I did practically from the first chapter. For a big part of the story, I actually paid only cursory attention to the investigative plot, being so caught up in their inner turmoil and struggles. That came back to bite me closer to the middle when that plot took central stage for a while. However, the story kept coming back to the more character-focused scenes again and again, and balancing the personal arcs with all the action and crime well enough, especially once it crossed into the second half and Mya and Tangerine both became a prominent presence, breaking up the testosterone party. All in all, barring those few hiccups near the middle, the story remained very engrossing for me throughout.
I very much enjoyed Cosby’s writing style, with the way he singled out sensory and visual details to bring more texture to every beat. It felt almost cinematic. In fact, a lot of pivotal beats were constructed in a manner that kind of begs to be transferred to the screen. I’m not a visual person at all and generally strongly prefer books to movies, but a few times I caught myself imagining what some frames could look like, what sort of opening shot would work for the current segment, what kind of music might be playing in the background. All in all, the writing was pretty immersive.
The only thing that sometimes took me out of it was the overuse of dialogue tags (”he said,” “she said”) where an action beat without the “said” would work just fine, or where no clarification was needed at all because it was already evident from the context and the character voice who was speaking. I know those dialogue tags are supposed to be invisible, but apparently, when there are too many, I can’t stop spotting them.