This book is good for people who are new to asexuality, as well as people who are already familiar with it. I’ve read several fiction and nonfiction books centered around asexuality, some that I would recommend and some that I wouldn’t, but this is definitely one that I would recommend. I also appreciate the additional resources/recommendations in the back of the book, and I will definitely be checking those out as well. 

There are some good, thought provoking bits in this book that I’m glad I read, but there are also some things that grossed me out or made me uncomfortable that I wish I hadn’t read. It’s also a bit repetitive at times, but so is delight, and life in general, so that’s understandable for this book. Overall, I’m not sure that I would recommend reading this, but I also didn’t hate the entire thing, there’s just some content in it that I didn’t expect in a “book of delights” and that I wish I could unread. 

This is an incredible book, but it is also so tragic and sad that I feel like I need some time to grieve and recover. It’s also extremely violent and gory (by my standards, but I tend to stay away from books with a lot of gore and  physical trauma). However, if you’re prepared to have your heart broken many times over and you don’t have a weak stomach, this really is a profound, moving book that I finished in a day and will be thinking about for a while to come. 

Based on the few poems from this book that are featured in another one of Mary Oliver’s poetry collections, Devotions, I already knew this book would be one of my favorite of hers (or any other poet’s, for that matter). However, those few poems did not prepare me for just how much I would love this book. I did not realize how present Molly would be in these pages, and for anyone who has not read “Our World” by Mary Oliver, featuring photographs taken by Molly Malone Cook, I would recommend that you do so before reading “Thirst”, so you have some background on their relationship and their life together. This is also the most Biblical of Mary Oliver’s work that I’ve read so far, and the poems that refer to God and the Bible are some of my favorites. Some of them remind me of being in a good church, so much so that I was thinking she would have probably liked to have listened to my old pastor sometime. I have so many underlines in this book that I will definitely be coming back to, and I’m sure I’ll be rereading the entire thing eventually.