Sekong!

3.5 stars rounded up.

Its earnestness is showing strongly (which I like), if somewhat rough, and meandering with lots of affectations. Overly reliant on lots of cultural references which feels a bit all over the place. Several typos peppered the novel, which is unfortunately quite distracting.

Things I like: small-town set up (Probolinggo), wide ranging cast—possibly too many? But the numbers and character diversity are possibly instrumental in avoiding stereotypical descriptions of gays: there's all kind of gays here. (And an acknowledgment that one of the characters may be bisexual.)

The narrative structure is certainly a choice: commentary on each character's naming, epistolary style, a storyteller-like expositions, Q-and-A style chapter.. I can't say it 100% works. But this is short so in the end I basically read it in a sitting.