This book has left a quake in me. I want to slather it on like a balm to the tenderest parts of me that ache, and long, and desire others, the parts of me that yearn for love but always seems to be let down because it’s one-sided. There hasn’t been a book like this in a while to get into the grooves of my being so intensely and immediately. The impact is resounding, and to call it a new favorite would be an understatement. It’s an absolute revelation to me, the way this book defies description, the way it resists review like oil to water, but instead leans into something else entirely unnameable. I want to create new words to describe this book. I want to expand my vocabulary, to create a new lexicon, to be the master of a new dictionary, and then give away those words freely like this book has freed me. I want to use my speechlessness as a collage, as a tool to describe the sheer genius of this book, but it seems futile, like a never-ending project. Gratitude, immense gratitude, fills me up; a dam has broken inside me, endless waves of enlightenment, of understanding myself anew are washing away the old parts of me that were incapable. Tree Abraham is an artist in the truest sense of the word.

Endless thanks to NetGalley and Soft Skull Press for this ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press for a free digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
DNFed at 15%. I tried to stick this one through, but I realized that I was forcing myself to keep going and not enjoying myself. There isn't much story to this memoir, and it was a lot more philosophizing on love and definitions of different words than I expected it to be. The writing was also a bit inaccessible to me; I'm not sure if it was too poetic or convoluted? It didn't feel like it was saying anything new to me either. The book was incredibly slow moving, and I felt like I was trudging through, so I have decided to put this aside for at least now. The mixed media nature of this book was cool though with its photographs, photography, and art sprinkled throughout.

I was very intrigued by the premise of "elseship": the portrait of a friendship after romantic obsession. I'm always interested in books that take unexpected perspectives on nontraditional relationships.

My favorite parts were scenes where we got to see the two women interacting, what their lives and relationship looked like, and the specifics of how an unrequited declaration of love affects them as friends and roommates. Those scenes are far and few between: a lot of the time, the writing veered into an overwritten kind of abstraction that sounded very spoken-word and made it hard to pin down the particulars of what was happening.

I loved how experimental the book was: it's fragmentary, diaristic and scrapbooky, with drawings, photos, footnotes, and diagrams. It reminded me of tumblr and Rookie Mag. Just wanted a more coherent 'story' to follow about the two women through the pieces.

I feel like a lot of people will love this book—especially those who like personal essay collections like Durga Chew-Bose's "Too Much and Not In The Mood" or "Pop Song" by Larissa Pham. Just not for me!