Reviews - Idlewild | The StoryGraph

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Update is that one of my best friends just told me that he literally knows the author of this book and is mentioned in the acknowledgments section. bro. the trans community is so fuckin small.

having been “The Lesbian” in my high school, having fallen into a drastic love with one of my best friends, having been a capital-letters Tumblr Kid… I constantly felt overexposed while reading this, reduced to a cringe. but this book brilliantly strikes a balance in making fun of this kind of queer adolescence and making stark the intensity of it (the cruelty of co-dependence, love that takes-you-over, foreplay via projection onto fictional characters, what happens when you can’t say what you mean and instead must give abstractions).

while reading I had the crazy impulse to reach out to one of my exes to tell them this book reminded me of us. MIND YOU….I’m not the type to pull some shit like that. IDLEWILD managed to transport me to a headspace I haven’t felt for ... almost a decade? -- just totally place me back in that original obsession.

but ultimately I’m with Fay here — “Does she remember me fondly, or bitterly, or just barely? I believe that for a year and a half, Nell loved me more than anyone else ever has, ever will, or ever should. This is a belief I dare not subject to reality testing. I want to remain the girl Nell loved.”

(the nostalgia / reflection in IDLEWILD is the definition of bittersweet, and done very well. I also like that Fay starts out with the "power" in the relationship but then her deep need for Nell comes thru)

the formatting and pov changes MIGHT lose you in the beginning. but wait them out. what makes this book so good is the characterization work — not just of Fay and Nell’s respective adolescent and grown-up selves, but also their combined “F&N unit,” PLUS their mirrors — the “real” Theo and Christopher AND the fic-versions of them. there’s layers to this shit player, tiramisu!

reading this book and reviewing it really makes me feel so sincere and insane. and you know what? I kinda miss feeling things this intensely. various dynamics in the novel reminded me of these specific emotions:

- Someone noticing when I am not *myself* but rather something made to please them, and them being both pleased and repulsed that I would contort myself OUT of myself, into something they want, because the something they want is the *actual me* and not the best approximation of their desires (i.e. the way that Fay sees right thru Nell)

- “Crushing” being the right word for that feeling, crushed like tin can after someone already downed the drink, the crushing not a punishment but a promise I was theirs to have and play with, keep even though I was now totally useless. (i.e. the way Nell feels about Fay)

- Thinking I can absorb someone’s “bad” so that the “bad” doesn’t touch anybody else. When I was in elementary school there was this girl, Maddy, who would randomly bite people. I had a high pain tolerance and so I told her to stop biting everyone else and just bite me. That kind of thing. (i.e. the way Christopher feels about Theo)

- "I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT I WANT TO BE A FAGGOT...and I want to be friends" (Fay, baby, we have GOT to go on T.)