In a tight 250 pages, Crane’s writing drives forward hard and fast. They mix their staccato sentences with strategic bursts of tender lyricism. Crane, who played college ball, describes Mack’s games with an insider’s fluency, bringing readers into the minute-by-minute drama on the court. ... In Crane’s hands, Mack’s account of this confusing period as a teenager is deeply affecting ... From the front row, we can’t tear our eyes from the vortex of passion between Mack and Liv.
A propulsive, perfectly crafted coming-of-age story ... Mack's first-person voice is written from a distance of some years, a voice of wisdom looking back on her high school days. This perspective is one of the novel's strengths ... Anyone who's ever been a teenager will relate to Mack's broader struggles with self-destructive behaviors, desires, and pain ... The best sports writing evokes not only movement, sensory detail, and skill, but passion, and Crane has a firm grasp on these facets ... A Sharp Endless Need is unforgettable.
Crane’s descriptions of Mack’s nearly feral joy, passion and physicality as she plays are as thrilling as their depiction of teenage life in a run-down Pennsylvania town (with its underage boozing and drugging, precariousness and cringey attempts at sex) is unsparing ... A Sharp Endless Need is a book you’ll remember.
With chapters arranged like a basketball game, Crane’s terse but lyrical style lends itself well to the frenetic nature of the sport. Mack’s teenage spiral of experimentation, which heavily features drug and alcohol use, will relate to some but alienate others. Best described as a new-adult, contemporary sports romance, A Sharp Endless Need is a jagged story of queer exploration, yearning, and the desperation to find oneself, wrapped in early-2000s nostalgia.
