After reading many literary fiction books about depressed and lost women with no substance, reading Boulder by Eva Baltasar is like a breath of fresh air. I didn't think a book about a lesbian relationship from the perspective of a chaotic existential lesbian can evoke so much emotion in me.

The story is told from the perspective of Boulder, a lesbian woman who starts working as a cook on a ship. She travels on this ship to escape from her previous life in Barcelona to find a sense of belonging. Even though the story is focused on Boulder's relationship with her partner, it is not a love story. It is a story about her psyche and mental state as she grapples with repercussions of her passivity in the relationship.

Themes of becoming a parent, mother, the isolation and loneliness and otherness of the supporting parent (who is not the child bearer) comes to the surface quite a lot throughout this book. But, it is not a book that tries to argue with you about having children, it is a book that argues with you about the decisions you make in a relationship when one is more reluctant to change, while the other just brute force their way into the decision making completely changing the relationship dynamic.

Boulder's perspective is fascinating to dissect. Seeing their deterioration as the situation around her starts to become progressively alien to her is like witnessing a car crash in slow motion. Even after the crash happened you still can't look away.

Julia Sanches' translation of Eva Baltasar's writing makes me wonder what it's like reading Boulder in the original language, which is Spanish. The prose is visceral, raw, and unfiltered in showing the ugliness of the story. It made the undertones of disgust of the events more relatable as it is written pulsing with raw truth.

The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced