Ok, when this came out - apparently like five years ago now?! - it made a huge splash. It was one of those love-hate books that, whether you liked it or not, everyone could at least agree gave readers a lot to talk about with its mess. It's been on my shelf for years now (literally, physically, in my house) and having just read and enjoyed Reid's Come & Get It, it seemed like messy novels are a current reading mood I'm mentally here for. And so...

OMG, y'all, this was possibly even messier than I'd anticipated? Even with all the hype about that aspect. Hot damn. And not like, the fun messy of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. This was, like, ugly messy. In line with Come & Get It, but still, in my opinion at least, Leilani takes things even further. Edie's attempt to balm her ennui with an affair with an older married man at work, Eric, who is trying out an open marriage for the first time, lands her in a border line unhinged situation. She finds herself living with the family, in their home, going to work at the VA morgue with Eric's wife and helping their adopted daughter, Akila, learn how to care for her hair because she has literally no one else in their all-white home and community to do so. Like, what?!?! Unhinged situations to find oneself in, with no other options and minimal recourse. It's all about getting embroiled in a situation wayyyyyy over one's head/deeper than one could ever have planned or expected. This novel was almost, in a few places, a grotesque look behind the curtains of a life, and the way art can produce a record of a person/life. Yeesh and yikes.

I do want to say though, I didn't dislike it. In fact, it was exactly the messy read my mood was looking for. I just want to be clear on the vibes for everyone reading this review and deciding if this one is right for you, or not. Primarily, I was impressed with the writing. This was a very cerebral, internal narrative, character novel. It did remind me a bit of Catalina and a bit of Beautyland, though more engrossing than either of those, in a "can't look away from this disturbing chaos" kind of way. It is bitingly precise. The dry observational tone, calling out - with insightful and “over it” snark - the ridiculous and contradictory nature of how people are treated by gender, race, age, intersectionality and just the general extreme [conservative] view BS that just actually makes no sense is cutting, icy, frighteningly unemotional (like those people that get quiet when angry, and are actually scarier than loud angry people). In particular, Leilani's addressing of the contradictions of being both hypervisible and invisible as a Black woman is phenomenal. It's sharp AF writing and insightful observations... and if there is a lean into dark “humor” sometimes, phew it is dark.  

Nothing is easy about the unpacking and contradictions and observations in this novel, in the way that nothing - no person, situation, nor relationship - in life has a clear and easy explanation. It's a wild read. And Ariel Blake's audiobook narration is delivered with a tonal precision that is perfect for the novel's vibe; a narrative tour de force.   

“I was not popular and I was not unpopular. To invite admiration or ridicule, you first have to be seen.”

 “Imagine living life so carefully that there are no signs you lived at all.”

“She says art is subjective, and technically that is the moral of the story, though it is also implied that everyone in the kingdom thinks her art is bad, which - if she is making art that is meant to be seen by others - is a serious tough-titty, the comfort of audience subjectivity pretty much null when the audience is everyone, and everyone has decided, subjectively, that the art is bad.”

“…even though racism is often so mundane it leaves your head spinning, the hand of the ordinary in your slow, psychic death so sly and absurd you begin to distrust your own eyes.”