Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - Ohio

This beefy, 482-page, deliriously descriptive novel could be distilled to a simple yellow sign, scattered generously along its title’s borders with bold, black letters warning onlookers to STAY FAR AWAY.

Set in a small town experiencing the depths of post-industrialization, war frenzy, and the opioid crisis, I was somewhat excited to read this because it focused on people only a little older than me reflecting on their high school experiences in this dismal place. It’s plenty dark, with varieties of addiction and emotional/physical abuse haunting each character in depressing ways. One of the book’s four sections is a particularly well written introspection from an Iraq/Afghanistan war vet, and there are luscious passages throughout that belie the author’s MFA writers workshop background.

My quibbles with the book unfortunately dogged the whole thing – the author is too often wordier than he needs to be (which ends up deadening the impact of some genuinely good writing), and his female characters seem hopelessly lost to his high school brain (in that they express/think little beyond social machinations, romantic prospects, and illicit sex). One particular character speaks only in Manic Pixie cringe and her Asian identity is examined only as a one-off thud of a joke at her own expense. (And none of the characters in high school speak like high schoolers!)

Although the book takes too long to get there, its climax hooked me. It reaches a double peak of cathartic violence, righteous on one hand and depressing on the other. High school can be ruthless, teenagers uniquely cruel as the looming slam of adulthood awakens them to their own power, and some people never escape that ghost. This book captures how much of a waking hell that is.

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angie_ray's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What a book. Through the lens of a group of disaffected 20 somethings who came of age during the early aughts, this book is an unflinching indictment of toxic masculinity and how it exerts its force on the personal and the global. This book follows a group of old high school friends crashing back together on one fateful and devastating night, and examines the ways that we all try to create stories out of memory, and the consequences that lay within. An incandescent debut novel from Stephen Markley.

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bookhoarder2022's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I went into this book with high hopes & a friend’s recommendation.

It took me 6 months to read it, because I just couldn’t get GOING.

Once I finally made progress, my average expression was a grimace: there are so so so many fatphobic descriptions I could barely blink without some other mention about how someone was less attractive than high school with weigh gain playing a part every time.

Speaking of attraction, there is so much longing in this book for HS lovers the now almost-30-year-old main characters want to get back to & HS sexcapades that honestly just feel gross to me, reading as a just-turned-30 myself & thinking about my HS self. It’s weird.

Overall, there’s a strange way that HS seems to possess the minds and hearts of these characters in a way that just disturbed me.

2 stars for excellent characters (even though I found them miserable) & some interesting plot decisions. Would not read again.

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