PositiveFiction Writer\'s ReviewThe outpouring of praise and attention for this emotionally exacting novel is well-deserved. Not only because of the book’s raw, brilliant prose and the undertow of its storytelling—subtle yet forceful—but also because of the way the author deals with issues of representation. Salih refuses to sanitize what it means to be queer and to be human ... What makes the narrative so powerful is the way in which Sebastian and Oscar, deeply imperfect, both beg and dare you not to look away from the grittier picture of what it means to be a gay man in America today ... Salih seems to encourage the reader to find beauty in their flaws and humanness. He repeatedly offers us glimpses of the exquisite via the repugnant, especially the moments that explore the primal control of the body over the mind.
