If you have seen Paris is Burning (if you haven't, probably you should) this is a retelling, an attempt to get inside the heads of some of the people at the center of that story. At times it gets very grim, and I felt some fear that spinning out the details of their tragedies wasn't the right way to honor them. The writing is beautiful, if brutal, and I think it does manage to capture some of the beauty and meaning to it all, even while it sticks to the gruesome details. The voices feel real, and it's easy to get lost in. Really, I think I understand the why the author wrote this book, because I saw Paris is burning, I read the stubs on Wikipedia about each person in the film and I wanted more, but there isn't more. So I get the need to make more, to live with these people a little longer. I don't know if it's okay, I think maybe it isn't. But I get it. And the book is beautiful.