RaveElectric LiteratureWhen I started reading Merritt Tierce’s debut novel about a self-destructive waitress, by page four I thought Tierce had penned the greatest restaurant book on earth. By page six...I had the shivers ... From the get-go, it’s clear that this is an author who understands the perverse power that comes from allowing our female bodies to be used. Which is to say: this is a book that talks about how powerful and fragile and dangerous it is to be a woman living, working, and reproducing in the world we know today ... In a book so visceral and vitriolic that Tierce’s insights come at you like thrown acid, it’s hard to pin down the one thing that should make you read it. But for the mothers out there, Tierce has captured the frantic desire to both protect and expel these creatures that come out screaming, red-faced from us, expecting the whole world ... Not since Isabelle Hupert in The Piano Teacher have we encountered a woman so incapable of bearing the weight of being loved. If we can wish one thing for Marie and her creator, Merritt Tierce, it’s that this book will put the term \'unlikeable character\' to rest. I didn’t like this bone-worked, maddening, cavernous mother, I loved her all the way to her rotted core, and rooted for her — still root for — this modern woman doing the worst version of her best.
