A review by artemistics
Evenings & Weekends by Oisín McKenna

medium-paced

4.0

life is so beautiful, and also so ridiculous, and mostly horrible. i started very unsure about the book, quickly becoming overwhelmed by the multiple characters and their intertwined lives, filled with anxiety by the feeling that something big was going to happen down the line, and it would be terrible, and i would feel sad to see how these people's lives kind of imploded in one fateful weekend. this happens to me often with contemporary litfit: i get invested in the flawed, messy queer people with the flawed, messy lives and relationships, and i get anxious that they're not gonna figure it out and be okay, because i already have to deal with that in the real world, so it would be nice to pretend that in the book it can all be neatly tied up, even when it clearly can't. the most easy to read segments were always phil's, while i struggled to connect with the other characters (strangely enough; maggie seemed right up my alley) and was always dissoriented whenever we left phil to go spy on someone else. slowly, though, i got used to all these people, eager to read about the little pieces of their little lives, and before i knew it, i devoured the latter half of the book almost with ease, still rushing and anxious that i wouldn't finish before having to take my mom to her doctor's appointment and i would leave them alone, interrupted, before knowing how things would go. just hopeful but sad, without feeling too preachy, too chock-full of pop culture references that would age the book in six months' time, or too obvious. the
abortion
scene is gonna be stuck in my brain forever: the way maggie puts into words how much it swells her with emotion that she can access free healthcare, that she can be a human being who is treated with dignity and offered good care without having to pay money to prove that she is a person deserving of that care, and yet it's not enough, isn't it, because:
"she didn’t just want the choice to have an abortion. she wanted the choice to have a baby as well."
instant tears to my eyes. being alive just means things are gonna hurt, and you never know what's going to happen. the road gets built, etc.
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