This book has everything to offer, in exchange for every ounce of the readers attention. As you pour over line after line of beautiful prose, you'll be hard pressed not to find lines that anyone that's seen every side of love couldn't relate to. The author weaves a gorgeous narrative that defies time and convention.

Historians and theologians may clutch their pearls at the very premise of this story. But like Madeline Miller and others, Anthony Oliveira resurrects a story from the dustiest shelves of antiquity and breathes new life by presenting a narrative through a more contemporary lens. In between performing their great deeds, these heroes from time must have dealt with the mundane; with the aches, pains, and bliss of being in love. In presenting that to the reader, these characters become more developed thousands of years after their epitaphs are etched in stone.

I'm anticipating the physical release of this book so I can promptly and proudly have a copy adorning my shelves. Something tangible with margins that beg to be scribbled in and bare lines just waiting for the swipes and slashes of my highlighter.

Dayspring is a novel of surprising eloquence, raw grief, and beauty. The book draws deeply and from JudeoChristian tradition, and a surprising amount from pop culture, to create a deeply personal narrative.

i'm not sure if you're supposed to rant & rave about books on bookstagram that don't come out for another 4 months, but i'm gonna do it anyways because i really really enjoyed anthony oliveira's upcoming novel 'dayspring'!!!

woof where to start with this one? there's not really a linear plot, so it's hard to describe, but imagine a book about a queer man coming of age & dating another queer man, but the man he's dating is simultaneously jesus & not jesus, and the book is written in prose poetry, and kind of like the bible in that the words of christ are in red ink. i've got you hooked now, right?

this book was just so beautifully written, and while i wasn't always 100% sure what was going on (i'm not the most fluent in the nuances of jesus' story), this book was full of heart & passion & queer yearning. i felt myself relating to the protagonist a number of times as he tried to find his place in the world alongside that of god. i found myself coming back to specific passages that resonated with me, and the ending had me holding my breath.

this is a very unique book, and i can see it not working for some people, but it worked well for me. highly highly recommend!

Dayspring requires your full attention and more. Oliveira's verse is beautiful, but definitely more than I bargained for. It's dense with allusion and subtext. Each and every line I savoured slowly and even then felt like I wasn't fully taking in all that was offered.

But I was completely consumed by these pages. He weaves between biblical and modern tales of (queer) love, grief, and life, constantly pulling all the heartstrings. I think this book hit just right for me as a queer ex-christian. All of the warm fuzzies from the biblical scriptures I was raised on without any of the hellcasting sins of the modern churches. All in all, I'm in love with this book. I simply wish I had more capacity to undertake a full study on Oliveira's verse.

"Dayspring" is not an especially wordy book - a combination of prose poem and dialogue, I'd be surprised if the word count cracked 70,000. But it is an incredibly dense book: allusions and references to medieval mystics sit side by side with queer theorists like Leo Bersani. I consider myself fairly well-read, but I'm fairly certain that a solid half of the references here went flying over my head. As such, this is not a light read; in order to get the most from it, it needs to be read slowly, and probably with a Bible study guide on hand. That's not an anti-recommendation, by the way: it's a very rewarding experience, just not an easy one.