PanLibrary JournalBecause of the need for fiction about queer love in the conservative evangelical South, this debut novel feels necessary. Unfortunately, it is not a good book ... it relies on short, choppy sentences and overly descriptive passages exhibiting language that’s overwrought, florid, discordant, and distracting ... a local evangelical politician who looms over the town...is more trope than fully developed character, and Max’s Germanness seems to exist solely to allow stereotypes to stand in for character development. Max’s parents are also irrelevant, hastily sketched background characters ... Because Max is unfamiliar with the U.S. South, his experiences are described using clichés meant to represent the town’s views on gays, god, football, and liberals, with results that are both unrevealing and off-putting. Not recommended.
Jessi Jezewska Stevens
MixedLibrary Journal... puzzling ... Percy’s internal monolog travels with her, but despite her many references to Web 1.0, such as Earthlink, AOL, Napster, and, inexplicably, Boolean logic, it doesn’t feel like the early 2000s it’s said to be ... Percy’s perspective is so limited and her world so small that readers who don’t identify with her may lose patience. This book’s primary audience will be those interested in the ruminations of an insecure young woman trying to find her way in the world.
Claire Lombardo
MixedLibrary JournalUnfortunately, the author\'s attempt to flesh out [various] tropes makes the story bloated and overstuffed ... While this reviewer thinks the novel would have benefited from fewer characters and a tighter plot, readers of women\'s fiction and multigenerational family stories may delight in the episodic approach.
