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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
funny
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
He was stronger than I—the thought registered dully in the back of my mind—because he was growing into a man, and I was not, and in the end there was no way around that.
instant addition to the Messy Trans(masc) Art canon. i felt seen by this in a whole host of ways, which was both uncomfortable and validating. and despite the differences between my high-school experiences and F&N's -- my teen years are a blur, i came of age in the early '10s rather than the early '00s, my close friendships were all with cis men and never so codependent -- idlewild is so authentic that it made me feel like that anyway. visceral in its specificity, right down to the experience of being a baby gay conceptualising slashfic about iago from othello.
(logging my criticisms here too: the theo/christopher dyad is much weaker for me than the fay/nell one, especially the role theo plays in the story's climax. the pacing is weird in ways i can't quite elucidate. and, as with every novel i tear through in like a day, i'm never sure how much it'll hold up on reread.)
but like. what if i'd had the vocabulary to understand what i was, in high school, rather than my mid-twenties...... and what can you do with the knowledge of wasted time, except keep on going? i'll be chewing on this one for a while.
it captured so many elements of awkward/confused/self centered teen experience, and early 2000s, so well. Also Quaker school rep ! lol
emotional
medium-paced
the way this captures the kind of freak shit my brain was on when i was 15 is uncanny. i never thought that part of my insides would be seen outside of myself….. i devoured this whole book and im gonna force everyone to read it
challenging
dark
funny
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It just took a while to get to the end with minimal payoff
I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. The characters were engaging, if a little unrealistic (but also hyper-realistic at times). The writing was witty and got more than a few out-loud laughs and appreciative huffs from me. Fay and Theo ended up being tragic, intriguing mirrors of each other, but their individual and collective resistance to being known, even to knowing themselves, weakened the ending. The queerness was undeniable but in a way never realized, and it left the story in an unsatisfying fizzle. On the other hand, I finished this in two days because I just couldn't tear my attention away.