A review by zillanovikov
A + E by Ryszard I. Merey

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was 12% of the way through A+E when I realized it was going to break my heart.

Remember when you were young and queer and neurodiverse in a world that only had words for one of the three? Remember those friendships which lived in the liminal spaces between love and admiration and need and desire, and you didn't have words for any of those either, and you were a mess and so was your friendship-love but it was also the only thing that mattered in the world? You don't know if you want to be them, or be with them, but you know you can't survive without.

YA stories - well, stories about young adults - don't usually get me. They're didactic and clean and tidy, spoon-feeding the Reader a set of Important Messages. They're about what some adult wants a hypothetical teenager to learn. But sometimes, there's books about life as a teenager which are painfully, messily real. Books which I can't read in one sitting because I need to stop and let the memories subside safely back under the waters. Books which I can't stop reading, and can't stop thinking about when I finish.

A + E is that kind of story.

Ash and Eu are the rejects who find each other, who are open wounds in uncertain bodies, who are trapped in the vicious system to enforce compliance and conformity that is high school. I recognize the bands they listen to, the orange tic tacs they eat, the books on their shelves. I recognize the homophobia, though it was never that bad for me. I hope we left that behind in the 1990s, I hope things are easier for the Youth of now. I recognize the messy, hopeful, desperate friend-loves. Relationships that shaped my life, and that I have no words for, that don't exist in the lexicon of clean, tidy love, finally reflected back to me on the page. I won't ever leave those relationships behind; even if I never see the people again, they're still burned into me.

I was right. I was in tears by the end of A + E.