This is the first book of Marisa Crane’s I’ve read and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew it was about basketball but I didn’t expect to love all of the scenes during games, practices, etc as much as I did. I loved how connected Mack felt to Liv through basketball and how spot on all the technical parts of the basketball scenes were. Crane’s deep knowledge of basketball really shines. Other than the basketball, I was invested in Mack getting to know herself as a queer person. I loved that Crane included elements of being curious about gender/gender presentation. Most of the book though I really had a hard time with. The extent to which Mack was constantly binge drinking and taking drugs was very extreme for a junior in high school with no apparent consequences. Being able to perform at an elite level on the court but be constantly drunk and high off the court seemed unreasonable. I understand the author was painting the picture of Mack’s depression and grief around her dad’s death but it didn’t quite work for me. Mack got away health wise, socially, with her mom, with the police with being constantly reckless. I appreciated the nuance of Mack’s relationship either Liv but I couldn’t get past the recklessness.

2.5/5 ⭐
Thanks netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for my unbiased review!

I love books about coming of age and this did leave me wanting a more. More character development and more attention to the themes presented (e.g. self harm). It felt like some pivotal moments were brushed over.

I think it relies too heavily on basketball and alienates readers that don't love the game but I think if you're a queer or lesbian reader you could look past this!

I loved that this was set in the early 2000s as I too was growing up at this time too!

All in all this wasn't a bad book (I thought the writing and the topics were interesting), I just think it could be better!

This book is hard to review because objectively I can see what it is doing and appreciate that it is following through on it’s own premise, but subjectively it could be hard to read, even though it was written well. There’s a lot of time caught on the edge of making a decision, or even acknowledging one needs to be made, and things cycle back and back and back to the same place. I did find it effective at times, but other times I just felt very separate from the story as Mac feels from her own life. I will say these feel like some of the most believable teenagers I’ve read about in a while - communicating horribly and just being emotionally messy throughout. The way that certain things can’t be said no matter how many times it’s approached was one of the ways the cyclical nature of this book worked for me. Something that didn’t work was the ending, which felt kind of rushed and unresolved.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

I very much enjoyed this book. The writing was great and the characters were well developed. I hope to read more from this author in the future.

We get to spend time with Mack as she learns about sexuality and herself, grief and drugs, and that fear that you might only want one thing and it’s already fleeting.

Here’s the thing: I love the style and the voice and the characters— flawed and honest and a bit too clear under the microscope. This book felt humid in that like way weather surrounds you and makes you sweat and slightly uncomfortable and self conscious. This is all complimentary.

If you played softball, basketball, soccer, or basketball in middle/high school and didn't know where to look when you changed in the locker room, boy do I have some news for you.

So many parts of this felt so incredibly real. I don’t have anything cohesive to say other than this is my favorite of 2024 and I will think about parts of it for a long long time. I absolutely savored and devoured this book.

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

(Sorry, I publixhed this on 11/3/2024 and forgot to update NetGalley)

Phenomenal! Hooked after the first chapter.

I loved the use of physicality instead of words in some places; the act of an action being stronger than inaction. The metaphors felt very pointed especially in relation to basketball. And I know next to nothing about sports, but I love how it sets a background for Crane’s diction. Crane has a strong hold on their authorial voice and a sharp eye for wordplay. You don’t need to understand anything about basketball to know what’s happening.

Desire, the mess of life, complicated feelings about gender and sexuality, and grief are all very prominent themes. It felt real, it was messy and toxic and somehow an incredibly real read of queer longing. Longing for something more and something better.

I liked the openness of the ending it feels very real to leave with questions unanswered and problems unsolved. There’s both a grief and a pleasure to not knowing what happens between Mack and Liv, the thoughts of what could be if the circumstances of their youth was different.

It’s a raw expression of early 2000’s queer identity, desire, (sports!), youth, and what’s beneath the raw meaty surface of what it all means.

Reading this book made me nostalgic for a past I never had. Beautifully tragic, the anxiety of growing up queer in small town in the early aughts are felt through Mack's complicated, and at times toxic, relationship with Liv. You want Mack to figure out their identity and life beyond basketball but understand that teenagers rather learn from words of advice. Actions have consequences and lack of communication can destroy promising things are both hard lessons to learn, and this book is a great example of learning through mistakes. This story is outside my usual genre, but I connected with the fears of not being good enough outside of one thing and feeling the pressure of those around you.

A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Cane is a coming of age novel following a start point guard named Mack after the death of her father and the arrival of a new teammate named Liv. It is a book of self discovery, identity, and first loves. A book about grief, yearning, and gender. And I absolutely LOVED it.

It’s devastating yet thought provoking. It’s intimate yet bone crushing. It has wonderfully written characters I could not believe how attached I grew to. Mack and Liv, in particular, were like yin and yang—tethered together—which the author does a good job in illustrating. I really enjoyed reading their slow burn romance.

But most importantly, I was blown away by the prose—it’s poetic style—and how the author uses the art of basketball to explain our lead character’s feelings (Mack). Our characters do not always speak through words, but through their bodies. They are able to talk without speaking—a primal language.

I absolutely cannot wait for publication day. I will be recommending this one to everyone I know.

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Rating: 4.25/5
This review will also be posted on my Instagram on publication date (May 13).

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I am so attached to every single character, even the side characters. I loved that Crane kept alluding to that ending but I couldn't pin point what would happen and I was devastated in the best way. Mack is truly a character for the ages. I was so worried because I DNF-ed Exoskeletons but this is a phenomenal coming of age book that every queer person should read.

Of the 323 books I read in 2024, this was in my top 5! 6 out of 5 stars.

Ok, so here's my longer review: do yourself a favor and go preorder this now. You've got two basketball teammates in a small town, and our main character desperately wants out of her shitty small town and is willing to do anything to get out. Her mother is also homophobic, and there's the normal small suburban town problems of opioids and addictions of various kinds, and it all comes together astoundingly. This is like a sapphic Mountain Goats song, but with all the depressing things that entails. Highly recommended read for this summer.

Although I'm not a big romance (of any sort) reader, I thought I would give this a go when Penguin reached out because I did play basketball when I was younger and I'm gay. Also, the early 2000s setting and exploration of grief compelled me. That said, I ultimately found this a bit underwhelming, especially the ending. I get that it's a basketball/sports book and I really liked the nuance around the role basketball played in Mack (and Liv's) life, but I felt like we needed less time on the court and more time developing the actual plot and relationships. Things would sometimes just happen and then we'd be onto the next scene. With the ending in mind as well, it kinda felt like a lot of build up to not much imo.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane.

This is a great tension filled story about a young female basketball hopeful, who in the midst of the grief of losing her dad, meets a girl who she is immediately infatuated with. But boyfriends, drugs, parents and stigmas all stand in the way of their relationship, regardless of how strong the desire is.

I don't know that I would call this a love story as much as a coming-of-age story. Lots of very real young-people challenges throughout, all written very well, with all of the angst and frustration that comes with being a teen. I know that I'm not the target audience for this book, but I'd definitely recommend it to the ya population, including my daughter.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
I want to start off by saying I could tell from the prologue that this book wouldn’t be for me. The writing style is one that I typically don’t enjoy. I also had a very hard time liking Mack, our main character. That being said, I pushed through hoping my opinion on both would be changed. As someone who is no stranger to hiding who they are and having difficulty managing their own expectations of themself with how the world sees them, I sympathized with Mack. From the outside, her and Liv’s relationship was toxic. Both of them refusing to say what needed to be said, in a healthy way. But what teenager is truly good with words? I feel as if there were so many loose ends that weren’t tied up for the story to truly feel complete. All of that being said, I am grateful that more WLW stories are being written and I do think that this book is written for an audience that isn’t me.

This a beautifully written book. I am not an athlete, so I loved the insight into what it feels like to be a gifted athlete--feeling dominant on the court, the pressure in all parts of life, relationships with teammates, the struggle to decide on next steps after high school. I felt the characters' pain in trying to work through their longing for women and their place in the world. This author's writing is full of emotion and desire while also being realistic. I wish that alcohol and drugs weren't such a big part of the lives of these young characters. Even though it reflects a different experience than I know/hope for, the author fleshed out the characters so that I understood their choices. With this book and "I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself," Marisa Crane is a must-read author for me. In both books, she brought me into a world that I didn't know, introduced me to interesting characters, broke my heart, and gave me hope.

Thank you to Dial Press for reaching out and offering the opportunity to read this book. They were right, it was right up my alley.
I love a good basketball story, and that this one was focused on female basketball players was a bonus. Crane wrote with authenticity, having played herself. I enjoyed the story and the developing relationship. I just wish there was more of it!

Just absolutely gorgeous. Heart-wrenching. Full of want and dread and pain and reaching, reaching, reaching. It ruined my night. It made my life. It made me feel forever. A new favorite; Mac Crane is a talent of our time.

Not quite sure what to do with this one. Really emotional writing but kind of misses for me.

It is all first person so you can't look away, at all. It starts with tremendous energy on the basketball court and off, then the middle gets really messy (but life is messy?), and the end comes out of nowhere. A small thing, but the epilogue starts with "we" for the first paragraph, so I thought it was about two people. But it seems to be a "royal we" for some sort of effect. I had to re-read the epilogue a couple of times to figure out what was going on.

Throughout, there is barely enough information to figure out what is happening with the other people. That is a side effect of the really tight first person, but it feels claustrophobic and confusing a fair amount of the time. Again, maybe life is like that?

Not your normal romance, that is for sure.

The Dial Press was kind enough to provide me with an advanced reading copy via NetGalley for an honest review.

Half way through and I’m really struggling to finish. The background about basketball is foreign for me so I find it super boring. The characters are not real likable and most are dysfunctional. So many 5 star reviews, clearly I missed the message or something just didn’t click for me.

Just finished and I’m so disappointed with this entire book. The book did get more interesting in the second half and up until this point I hung in there if for no other reason but to discover what happens at the end, only to discover there is no end. What college does she go to? Does she go? Does she play professionally? What happens to her and Liv? What was the connection with their dads? I need closure to feel satisfied with a book. Is that the point? I would have given this book 3 stars but the ending just frustrated the hell out of me.

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy of this book.

i'm going to try to write a review about this one without screaming at the top of my lungs. thank you to Random House, The Dial Press, and NetGalley for making an advanced digital copy happen for me.

i have read it and i have it preordered in three different formats. i'm not kidding, i'm about to get really annoying about this book.

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i never know how to talk about books that i so deeply love.

this is a book with some of the most beautifully written prose and some of the most accurate depictions of lesbian longing that i've ever read. i think about this book and i feel it physically in my body. just the memory of reading it inspires a specific longing in me, as though i'm being pulled to something like a magnet. it's that good - it's given me a visceral reaction.

first off - if you're scared of sports, don't be. yes, this is a queer basketball romance. yes, there's basketball, but it's written in a way that doesn't make it too difficult to grasp what's going on, but the basketball scenes really aren't about basketball, anyway. this book is a wild testament to the love between teammates, the difficulties of unraveling your own identity in the moments you're trying to decide who you want to be. this book is about grief as much as it is about the grief of losing your youth, the grief of decision, and the perils of indecision. this book is about wild love.

we have mack, sports star. her dad dies. left with a ton of debt from credit cards he'd taken out in their names, her mom can't really be a mom. and even in this, you realize that the people we regard as the ones that are meant to protect us and take care of us are just people, too. there's this word - "sonder" - and it's a feeling of realizing that everyone has a life as complex and full as your own. that was what this book felt like.

liv transfers in. mack and liv connect on the court in that once-in-a-lifetime way that makes you desperately want to latch on to it, because you understand you may never have that feeling again. mack pines, even as we're introduced to liv's utterly disgusting boyfriend.

they both turn over stones, looking for the answers to their future. both courted by college scouts, both pushing their bodies to the limit at the expense of their futures, you realize what a specific snowglobe of a moment youth can feel like when you're in it. how much you don't want to leave that feeling of not being sure, because decision means mapping out who you want to be. it means your eventual death, too. this book made me feel immortal in that feeling.

this feels like a poet's novel, the prose is that gorgeous and lyrical. it unravels lust and love, but also sexuality, homophobia - both internalized and not, and gender. the feeling of being you, but not being able to communicate that to the world.

there are very few books that i feel like have fundamentally changed me, but this is one. thank you to mac crane for delivering to me the novel of my heart.

i can say with certainty this is my favorite book of all time.

Surprisingly very good, the true core of this book is coming of age in the most heart wrenching of ways. I just loved this.

I would’ve ATE THIS UP as a high schooler tbh.