life is so interesting. this was one of the first books i came by in 2020 which somehow stayed in my memory and by tbr. the only thing i knew was that it was a wlw queer book about loneliness and grief. now, six years later, i've finally read it—on a whim, as always. kayin, lia, hana and i were discussing books at college and i got struck by this nostalgia to read this specific nina lacour book. i think now was the perfect time to read it too because i related to marin's experience being alone in her college dorm in a way i otherwise wouldn't have six years ago. i could picture her dorm room so clearly because i'd lived in one at elmhurst myself. the click of the radiator turning on and off at specific intervals, the image of my half of the room being empty while my roommate's half is decorated and full of life, the image out of my window with snow falling: it was all so viscerally real for me. i think that, in part, makes up for a lot of my rating. i do think it's a little funny that marin doesn't have enough financial anxiety while buying things, though she's aware of her limited finances. and the dorm kitchen having sm appliances is ridiculous. but i really liked the contained setting of this novel. the non-linear storytelling lends to the mystery of the past, and expands pretty well on mabel and marin's relationship. i love the non-explicit intimacy of YA fiction. it's a lost art—giving words to the feeling of being touched and touching in return instead of being preoccupied w whose dick was being stuck in whose hole (ew). the latter is a major pitfall of recent books due to booktok's obsession w smut. i made a lot of annotations in this book because of how much i related to marin's ruminations of being alone and living. grandpa's obsession w birdie and the obscurity of his motivations and character is the weakest part of this book. marin herself doesn't know the answers, that's part of what makes that so unclear, but it's still something very ridiculous that he had a whole secret room of her mom's stuff and wrote letters to her and imitated her writing him back. bro just goes missing or drowns: we don't even know. so yeah weird plot point but eh. mabel was also a pretty weakly written character. i know nothing about her except that she has a boyfriend and is an understanding friend and former situationship. HANNAH THO. i liked hannah. she's never described so her appearance suffers white room syndrome BUT despite how scarcely she's mentioned in the story, her bond w marin still got me shipping them. AND MARIN BASICALLY CONFRIMS HER FEELINGS FOR HANNAH EVEN THOUGH SHE DOESN'T ACKNOWLEDGE IT OUT LOUD!!! i think that's beautiful. don't got much else to say. that's the review guys.
