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ehomant's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
a tender collection of essays about the ways that queer identity intersect with the complex landscape of life—family relationships, jobs, property ownership, chosen family, travel, finances, etc. my partner found this at a secondhand bookstore in minneapolis years ago during our first anniversary trip, which feels like a very fitting way to encounter this book! at times the essays got meandering and verbose, but I so appreciated the documenting of our community at a particular point in time (mostly the ‘90s). finishing this was a great way to start pride month this year. happy pride!!!!
ceris's review
This was a long, subtle, sensual portrait of long time love and how it looks and feels and what it means. It was published in 1999, and it feels like a piece of history, not because it’s very old, but because the landscape of queer life is very different. Very different, but also the same.
blueberryhotel's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
ahhhh… one of the best books i’ve ever read. undeniably VERY dense and it took me almost 3 months to get through, but i can’t take off any points for that because it was just SO good. gorgeous prose. made me feel seen, understood, validated in so many of my inner musings - and not just the ones about being a lesbian! i also connected so much with barrie’s reflection on her young adulthood, her struggles in finding her place, and later, her recounting of when linnea felt her career aspirations were defeated. at times it was difficult to follow because of all the time skipping and jumping around from different periods of barrie’s life (and aforementioned gorgeous prose, which could be on the wordier side), but i wouldn’t have changed that. if i was writing a memoir i would want to be as verbose and descriptive to convey my life experiences and feelings too. i could write an essay on how much this book means to me. i felt so deeply connected with queer (and esp lesbian) history reading this. i love how barrie grapples with the dilemma of where lesbian marriages fit (and more often don’t fit) into the heterosexual mainstream. i think the review blurb on the back cover from rosellen brown says it best, that barrie writes “as if she herself were curious to discover what she is thinking about their relationship.”
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