Review by Booklist Review
The world is burning around DeNiro's narrator--the rich are bastioned in their skyscrapers, gun boats and AR-15s dominate her surroundings--but she is focused on her own personal turmoil. She is struggling to find her footing as a trans woman surrounded by people hostile to the idea of her very existence. Her wife and son live states away. Her mom deadnames her on the phone. But a mysterious society seems to want to help her, and her angry father reluctantly helps her craft a camera obscura based on the dimensions they gave her. It's up to the reader to slowly discover who's real and who isn't, to see how the ghosts and fairy folk and mysterious notes get the narrator through on her difficult journey. DeNiro's novel is a lyrical, emotionally powerful story about what it means to try and find a place for yourself in the midst of a hurricane of climate disaster, violence, and fear. It's a story told through weird, ghostly, haunting fantasy. Fans of enigmatic speculative fiction like Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield (2022), will enjoy this tale of queer parenthood, of the reality of the sharp fear of trans lives, and of complicated self-discovery.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
DeNiro (City of a Thousand Feelings) offers a beguiling if somewhat opaque glimpse into a trans woman's journey to find safety, acceptance, and love in a near-future Minnesota. Told in the second person, the narrative follows an unnamed trans woman (referred to in dialogue as either "______" or "deadname") as she carries out relatively mundane tasks in service of a mysterious project, including constructing a large camera obscura that allows her to see her somewhat estranged son. She socializes, dates, and talks with family members both living and dead, all while the narrative gives glimpses of political and social turmoil happening just outside the frame. It's not always clear how metaphorical or imaginary particular moments are meant to be--as when a Home Depot employee channels the woman's dead father--and abstract musings on human behavior add to the story's murkiness. Still, this is a fascinating and often lovely weird fiction character study. (Sept.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An unnamed trans woman is at an uneasy stage in her metamorphosis. She has finally cast off the male persona that never fit her, but she has yet to become the woman she dreams of being. Part of her discomfort is physical--she does not have the body she wants--but much of it is social and emotional. She knows that most strangers do not see her for what she is. Her ex-wife is still adjusting to what is, for her, a surprising new reality. Her mother deadnames her. And, most importantly, her young son is shutting her out. DeNiro's significant achievement here is making palpable the excruciating, inescapable self-consciousness of her main character. Her decision to narrate in the second person is a bold one; this move will help some readers immerse themselves in the story, but it will just as likely alienate others. Some of her other choices are more questionable. The boundary between what is real and what is not real is often hard to discern. This confusion is not inherently problematic, but the fantastic bits don't really add up to anything. There is a Home Depot employee--the ghost of the protagonist's father, maybe?--who builds a camera obscura for her so she can watch her son from afar. There are friends who definitely do not exist and some who might. There's an occasionally helpful but mostly mysterious cabal. There's a boyfriend with some assembly required. And there are hints at a Midwest more dystopian than the current, actual Midwest. Each of these weird threads is intriguing, but not one is developed to the point of being meaningful. DeNiro brings more to her first novel than she can fully realize in 160 pages. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
