Weird book about weird people; I wished I enjoyed the experience more. If A24's target audience was mainly white women on the Gen X/Millennial cusp. Comparisons to Ottessa Moshfegh make sense, but this felt pretty MFA-y. I've been trying to unpack what I mean when I say that, myself not having pursued an MFA; from my perspective as a non-American, it seems to be a subgenre of American contemporary literature that shares the features of: a narrative driven by horrific personal events; character-driven narrative emotional detachment; and a resolution where the protagonist pushes off from all that into a new phase in their life, often with the implication of healing. These features are of course related. This is not something I inherently denigrate; I have read it and loved it, particularly with Brandon Taylor's </i>Real Life</i>. I also think I have roughly described a genre convention, which I do not oppose. But when I don't love it, it's mainly because it's such a stark, individualistic narrative, which of course is characteristic (it seems to me) of contemporary American literature. It would be the height of hypocrisy to pretend I don't like that in books, but with this one I noticed it. I needed to notice the scaffolding a lot less to enjoy the experience of this book.

Also coming up against something that requires more thought: I found the idea of sex therapy in a horrible little Catskills town the most compelling part of the book, and the transcribed therapy sessions were well done and very entertaining, thanks in part to Om, who seems to embody everything in Hudson NY being parodied at once. But I had a hard time finding the exploration of queer sexuality balanced when our main characters...

are hurting themselves, each other, and the people around them by committing to that exploration, and the story resolves with a retreat to a less destructive life—and, perhaps, also retreating from the queer sexuality that is the catalyst for so much freedom in this book. 

I've been thinking a lot about messaging in books lately. One thing that can annoy me in contemporary literature is that I can't seem to quite reconcile the fact that all books contain messaging—that's what the themes do; in this book's case the bees, the broken down house, the donkeys—but to discuss that messaging is to, often, be poo-poo'd for seeing didactic messages where they do not exist. Other times, people discuss messaging in ways I don't think applies. There's discussion around Lisa Jewell's <em>None of This Is True</em> where a reveal about the villain of the book is that they were simultaneously not a terribly good person and groomed young. Some think the book excuses the grooming, while I think the book merely wanted to put a twist in. 

Ultimately, I don't think there <em>was</em> commentary about whether the queer sex was destructive, freeing, both, or something else entirely—but I think there should have been. I think context should have been given there. Other books where I had trouble parsing the messaging include <em>Patricia Wants to Cuddle</em> by Samantha Allen, another weird book about queer sexuality I wasn't sure how to respond to. In that review, I wrote, "I'm not sure this book has politics." I think this book has politics, but I think they're highly individualized politics, which felt like a shortcoming. More to think about as I said, but I wasn't picking up what it was putting down.

Overall a fine entry into the sad girl book canon; I would recommend it to people who want more of that. But it didn't work for me as a cohesive whole. I wish it had!