A review by brnineworms
Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan

dark hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.0

“Most of the time, the future felt like an obscure projection I was afraid to want because there wasn’t evidence of future me anywhere, in life or in fiction. I just knew Jack Halberstam and I were the same, so I existed there, in theory.”

You know when it’s evening and everything’s just so clear but also hazy? This book is like that. The text is split into small chunks, which makes it easier to swallow.

The first two thirds of the book are eclectic and frenzied and the last third feels like it’s settling. It works well thematically, but the book had relied so heavily on its writing style until that point. I wasn’t invested in the characters so much as the prose. So when the prose changes shape and we see the characters more clearly, it feels odd. I stuck around for the purple, so why is it fading now? The ending is sweet, though.

Ponyboy isn’t for everyone but it (mostly) worked for me.

CONTENT WARNINGS:

lots of drug use and drinking, addiction/alcoholism, bulimia, dissociation, suicidality, dysphoria, transphobia, sexual assault (including csa), cheating