TLDR; This is astonishingly good and severely fucked up. If you are, or have been at some point, an outcast, queer, and terminally online, and you're down to read some fucked up shit, this will probably hit for you too.
LONG THOUGHTS RAMBLE:
I connected with the story so much more than i thought i would. At first i couldn't keep track of all of the characters, but after sitting with them for a while, they are so much like people i've known and situations i've been in. Enough to make me reflect on my own life and my friends.
Can't say i've experienced the sheer level of violence present in most of the story. But playing text therapist for friends, new relationship mania, struggling to adapt to grief, devastating mood swings, wanting to help but not being able to -- all the emotions around that were so specific and hauntingly familiar.
Being able to write 5-8 main characters whose perspectives are switched between is a pretty incredible feat as well. Wouldn't have been the same without it. I think having everyones perspectives is what made me so reflective while reading this. When have I been in these situations, and what have I done?
The way everyone is deeply morally gray, deeply flawed, is so well written. Your first impression of someone may be that they're nasty, but later you see their redeeming qualities. Or you meet them and you're like "this person seems pretty nice" and then their awful qualities are revealed later on. It's impossible to be a perfect friend to your friends no matter how deeply you love. So many of these relationships get close to abusive but don't actually cross that line. And that feels reflective of the world -- people can vascilate between insensitive, loving, thoughtful, self-absorbed, and distractable so easily.
I have so many thoughts I'm definetly forgetting a whole chunk of them, but this review is plenty long. Thank you for creating this thing that is so unique and unfiltered in its beauty and its ugliness.
Also That scene between Nessa and Argo scratched such a specific itch for me with its combination of gentleness, emotional intimacy, and intoxicating violence -- thank you <3