RaveLos Angeles Review of BooksIn her extraordinary debut novel Love Me Back ... Tierce nails how the woundedness of people who work in restaurants is connected to the degradation of their jobs ... Tierce’s stark and fierce prose shines in...intimacy-loaded behind-the-scenes moments when servers have near-telepathic communication in the intricate orchestration of table service ... Sexuality is a complicated terrain, and Tierce mines it unabashedly ... Tierce bravely subverts the male gaze into a female one, in that Marie is the one objectifying men, finding what is pleasing to her. Her behavior is definitely driven by her desire, her vision, her attraction — which is one thing that makes this book so unusual. Yet even though she’s making the choices, her sexual journey is still steeped in degradation and humiliation ... There’s a detachment to Tierce’s writing: her prose has a post-traumatic-stress-like disconnection but also a visceral immediacy and intimacy...that practically forces the reader to participate in Marie’s experiences. This can be brutal ... Tierce is perhaps most brilliant in showing how the prostitute-like, soul-sucking qualities of work in the service industry are conducive to Marie’s self-destruction, and vice versa ... Again and again, Marie’s actions — sexual and otherwise — aim toward self-obliteration without break or awareness or hope. Yet she breathes on the page, undeniably sexual, fucked up, complicated, and alive: she dares us to acknowledge her.
I was glad to have read Love Me Back — twice! — for this review, and reading it changed me. But it was also so painful, I know I could never read it again.
