I really enjoyed the writing - flow of consciousness, the language meandering along while nothing much happens.
However, there's a certain lack of depth. Here you have a bisexual woman in our age, having all the possibilities, and therefore, all the problems, but somehow, the book stays silent on many topics it laid the basis for (queer love, new ways to love, what does love even mean?) it could have explored.
Plus the France-part seems redundant.

Mudflowers by Aley Waterman is a poignant exploration of grief, love, and the complexities of relationships. Set in the artistic and bohemian west end of Toronto, the novel follows Sophie, who is grappling with her mother’s death and trying to make a living through her stained glass mosaic art. She is in a complicated love triangle with her childhood friend and sometimes-lover Alex, and the glamorous poet Maggie, whom she falls for deeply.

The novel explores the impact of family, both the ones we are born into and the ones we choose, and how they shape our lives and relationships. The story moves from Toronto to an arts colony in a castle in France and back to Newfoundland, with vivid descriptions that bring the settings to life.

Waterman’s prose is lyrical and evocative, painting a vivid picture of Sophie’s world and inner turmoil. The characters are complex and flawed, with their own secrets and struggles that add layers to the story. Mudflowers is a beautifully written and thought-provoking novel that will resonate with readers who have experienced loss, love, and the search for connection.

It book was not for me at all. I didn't connect with any of the characters, and the LGBTQ+ representation, or lack of it, was... very subpar.

Unfortunately this book is not for me — and I full recognize it might very well fall in the wheelhouse of other readers, but sadly it’s a pass for me.
I’m not a fan of the writing style (and while the absence of quotation marks irks me, I have become accustomed to it, largely through Sally Rooney, yet it’s still not my preference, and in my humble (yet inconsequential) opinion, it often achieves quite the opposite effect from that which is originally desired).
I found myself drifting away from the story, and ultimately simply didn’t have much interest.
To reiterate, it’s very possible I’m not a match for the book — it’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.

*arc provided by Netgalley.

2.5 stars rounded up. This plot just didn't do it for me and to put this book under the umbrella of LGBTQ seems like a stretch.

The story follows 20 something Sophie after the death of her mother. Sophie and her "boyfriend" Alex are extremely close and love each other, but don't have that "it" feeling they know exists out there. Sophie then finds that feeling with Maggie, but what follows is a messy bisexual relationship swap of sorts. There honestly wasn't much plot. It was just a whole lot of rambling (in my opinion). But while Mudflowers had a stream of conscious writing style a lot of the time, it was pretty easy to follow and I could see someone liking this if they really identified with Sophie. I couldn't though.

I do have to say that at times this book had some really awesome quotes to highlight. Like:
"When we're adults, we fall in love with people because they remind us of the formative people in our youth, our formative experiences. The new and the familiar blend together, allowing people to reconcile past trauma through present enactment of it, so that they can reclaim intimacy and get back the part that they lacked in childhood."
Wow. Yes. Loved that.

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this free e-ARC so that I may share my honest review.

DNF - I really loved the premise of this story but I found the flow of the writing too similar to the conversation that might be exchanged (or heard) between friends wherein one was eagerly & breathlessly telling the other everything that was on their mind. This is not an innately poor literary choice but, the transition between thoughts felt cold. Unlike real-time conversations where there are breathing breaks & you can witness a person transitioning to the next subject matter, this book was one long flow that missed the mark by a smidge.

Once the story is finalized & it is published I will see about revisiting it again because I think it has a great deal of potential.

Mudflowers is a novel about a woman looking for love and self after her mother's death, whilst navigating changing relationships. Sophie lives in Toronto, where she makes stained glass mosaics and doesn't return home to Newfoundland after her mother's death. She spends most of her time with Alex, a guy who is her childhood best friend and sometimes lover, but then she meets Maggie, a woman she finds herself fascinated by, and Sophie must work out her relationships to both of them.

This is an at times stream of consciousness style book that fits into the "sad-ish millennial looking for meaning and being a bit of a disaster" genre. You get access to a lot of Sophie's thoughts and memories in the narrative and it's the kind of book that maybe if you find her relatable, you'll particularly enjoy it, as I think people often find with this genre. However, the thing I didn't really get from the first person narration was much about how Sophie actually felt about Alex and Maggie, not in-depth.

There's not much going on, plot-wise, as you might expect from this kind of literary fiction, but I did think there was going to be more interesting stuff going on with the central relationships which are described in a blurb as a "complicated love triangle", but actually after some initial revelations, mostly it seems something that Sophie is fairly apathetic to. That in itself is maybe interesting, but the book didn't really delve into exploring the relationships formed and the potential of Sophie's connections to Alex and Maggie, however they might be. There's a middle part set in France that felt fairly pointless and after that, what happened felt quite cursory. As a book that focuses on a woman loving both a man and a woman, I also felt that there was surprisingly little engaging with this and the kinds of queer relationships and families people form, despite it seeming like a major point of the book.

I was expecting more of an interesting exploration of the idea of a love triangle and queer ways of subverting that (or failing to), but Mudflowers just felt similar to a lot of other books out there, engaging with the protagonist's feelings but never quite going deep enough for me.

As a Sally Rooney fan, i adored this. The characters were so real and the writing style was so good. I loved this book.

I quite liked this, despite what I think could fairly be described as significant flaws. The plot is thin and uneven, and the way the relationships between the central characters resolved felt unsatisfying and unfair. I also think it's pretty misleading to label this as an LGBT novel—or, worse, a specifically lesbian one. The relationship between Sophie and Maggie is the only same-sex relationship even mentioned, and in addition to being short-lived, it's frequently described as being not really romantic or sexual in comparison to the relationships both characters have with men, which not only receive described sex scenes and declarations of love and meaningfulness but also an amount of time and narrative weight that is mostly absent in the Sophie/Maggie relationship.

That said, I do think there's a lot to like here. The characters are specific and well-formed, and—frankly—they made me feel things. Things being, sometimes, rage, but what can you do. While the prose style is quite different, I can see this appealing to fans of Sally Rooney-type stories, where the cool but not quite likable characters and vague philosophical musings take precedence over plot. The prose style itself was also interesting to me—kind of hazily cinematic and meandering, following sometimes a kind of dream-logic.

I also think this would also be popular with people who, like me, feel nostalgic for a now bygone era of semi-ironic hipster-isms and twee quirkiness. The narrative style (and narrator Sophie) embody a sincerity and innocence that remind me of the books and movies I loved of as a teenager—Rookie Magazine, Joe Meno novels, Greta Gerwig's Frances Ha. Despite its flaws, I found it very charming.

Mudflowers is Aley Waterman’s first novel and it follows Sophie in the year after her mother’s death. The book is told in first person POV from Sophie. The story takes place in Toronto where the apartments are small and everybody is twenty seven. Sophie and Alex are childhood friends but also lovers. Sophie ends up meeting Maggie who is a poet and she develops an infatuation. I am giving this three stars because it was very readable and quick to get through and the story was fine. However, I do think this novel was just too short and the story honestly felt empty. I deeply felt the parts about mothers and how Sophie felt about her mother. But other than that the love triangle that was pitched in the synopsis just wasn’t a love triangle. I never felt any connection between Maggie and Sophie and there was not enough build up for me to believe it. It all just felt like the author was trying too hard which is understandable considering this is a debut. That said, this was not a bad book at all. I just think this was pitched incorrectly and when this book is released it will find its people and I can see many people loving it.

“mudflowers” is both a character study and an insight into the horrors of modern dating. sophie and her boyfriend alex are in love, but neither have had the Big Feeling about each other. when sophie meets carefree euphoric maggie, she finally gets that feeling. as her relationship blossoms with maggie in a unicorn hunting fashion, she might lose alex in the process.

this is not a lesbian romance, this is a bisexual disaster romance-esque horror. the writing is very stream of consciousness and has moments of great brilliance. it is well written, engaging, but the ending let me down and left me wanting more. i really enjoyed this novel, and it was a fun read. i just wish it wasn’t painting bisexual women as cheaters and overly promiscuous.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review!