I love this sort of story. You’re fed the connections and comparisons and have to read it back over to link them up in different constellations. The truth of the matter is people are like this too, but the scattered array we get is much harder to read over and link up. We just happen into the orbit of someone, bringing ourselves and all our bullshit along and bumping into the gift of those scattered pieces that are one segment of their life.

2019. A lovesong to a dead friend. The narrator, a trans woman realizes belatedly that she was in love with her friend who died, Vivian. Interesting juxtaposition of a lesbian trans woman and a straight trans woman. This book is a bit bizarre as it spends a lot of time describing a very weird, fictional tv show called Little Blue. I thought there would be a point to it somewhere, but it was just a jumping off point to talk about Vivian a lot. I wished more had happened with the show. But a strong effort, well written and poignant. ( )

this is maybe not the first book ive given 5 stars but it's the first that's made me cry a lot in a while. and I usually DONT cry about books, last time a book made me cry was the Amber Spyglass.

I liked that the book was really accessible, I don't like overly complicated things like Pale Fire which may be superficially similar to this one in that both are exercises in verisimilitude (even moreso in this case cuz some of the pop culture references are real but a lot, like the namesake Little Blue, aren't), but the style didn't get in the way of the narrative IMO. And that left me wondering how much of this was real because the emotions seemed very real...

Maybe my favorite part is that the author didn't say how Viv died, and the 'spoiler' at the end is that she isn't going to say why. I honestly didn't want to know, because I'm sick of books about my existence being inherently tragic, but I could imagine cis ppl reading this anticipating some sort of reveal and then getting frustrated LOL
( )

Had this one half-finished for months, but found myself thinking of it often. Up & finished it today.

It catches something essential about the way infatuation works: that fascinated curiosity in your crush's world.

It's wonderfully effective at painting that world -- including the other, fictional world of the Vivian's favourite tv show -- through glimpses and digressions. Plante's ability to spin up little cultural artefacts that feel ridiculous and real is fantastic. The book's at its best when it lets itself get carried away into these imaginary gardens, with real toads in them. Its most oblique and convoluted expressions of love and friendship are its most memorable and powerful. ( )