I'm conflicted. I love books about other books/stories but this was executed in a way that was confusing and hard to keep track of. The writing was cerebral, the truths told in this book might not be the truth. The language is often beautiful but the story goes nowhere. The connecting story of the book with the "blackouts" feels underdeveloped.

But I think this still has a lot of potential. I liked the writing better than "We the Animals", I felt it was more mature and he's definitely found his style of writing. The imagery and dialogue was haunting. The themes of the importance of lost queer history and untold queer narratives were great. But the blurb of this novel made it seem like it would follow a more linear structure, and it completely does not. I really had no idea where we were or what was going on the entire time. But the high parts of this book are so high it's hard to criticize. I'll definitely read what Torres writes next.

3.5 ⭐ still kinda deciding on 4 ⭐