“A caustic yet charming snapshot of contemporary digital life.” exalted
not invite sensationalizing. In each story, a rainbow appears. We might read this as a motif underscoring the full range of human sexualities and genders—and, if it’s not too corny, we might see it as a symbol of hope. Conklin introduces themself as a writer to watch with these open-eyed, tenderhearted, well-crafted stories.
EXALTED
Dorn, Anna Unnamed Press (295 pp.) $27.00 | June 7, 2022 978-1-951213-48-0 The lives of a struggling millennial astrologer and one of her Gen X fans intersect in a shocking way. Emily Forrest operates the uber-popular Instagram astrology account Exalted, but in real life, her rent isn’t paid and she
y o u n g a d u lt
behind this prenuptial puzzle is that each guest harbors a secret. Lexi is 11 weeks pregnant, putting a damper on Bella’s planned drinking games. Robyn, a soon-to-be-divorced single mother, may be gay. Fen’s last visit to the villa was traumatic due to a humiliating encounter with a local waiter. But the secrets which threaten the very underpinnings of this so-called happy event are withheld until the end. As plot momentum flags, the challenge becomes to occupy the women’s time during the four days leading up to the big reveals. Eleanor, the groom’s sister, is grieving the recent loss of her own fiance, Sam. But how exactly did Sam die? Why did Bella leave nursing for jewelry sales? What did Bella and Fen quarrel about at the airport? Then there is Ana, also a single mother. A yoga student of Lexi’s, how does she fit into the bride’s inner circle? And Lexi, aside from her past as a star rock-and-roll dancer, is a cipher. Time passes distractingly enough, what with the blue Aegean, Mediterranean fare, energizing hikes, brutal hangovers, and petty squabbles, most sparked by Bella’s disappointment at the party’s overall lack of mojo. Unfortunately, the novel suffers from the same malaise. Treads a tortuous path between rising action and frustrating misdirection.
RAINBOW RAINBOW
Conklin, Lydia Catapult (256 pp.) $26.00 | May 31, 2022 978-1-64622-101-1
An award-winning author offers a spectrum of LGBTQ+ characters in their debut collection. In “Laramie Time,” a comics artist uncovers some truths about herself and her lover when they ask a friend to help them make a baby. The protagonist of “Cheerful Until Next Time” meets the man he wants to become and then falls in love with him. “The Black Winter of New England,” “Ooh, the Suburbs,” and “Pioneer” show adolescents discovering—often painfully—their sexuality and their gender. The word transition is used to describe the processes transgender people undertake to live more fully as their true selves—and there are certainly transgender people undergoing this sort of transition depicted here—but the people in these stories are all in the midst of transitions of multiple kinds, and Conklin addresses the way society is changing, too. The titular character in “Sunny Talks” is a trans teen who has amassed a respectable following on YouTube by sharing his views on “pansexuality, passing privilege, cisnormativity, he/him lesbians, PGPs, chasers, and demiromanticism.” That sentence would have been shocking just 10 years ago, and it will undoubtedly confound a lot of people even now. These stories assay serious topics, such as pedophilia and sexual assault. In “Boy Jump,” the main character visits a Holocaust memorial in Poland and reflects on the places where it’s not safe for LGBTQ+ people to travel in Eastern Europe. But these are not cautionary tales about being queer. Conklin is adept at communicating complexity and writes in a plainspoken style that does |
kirkus.com
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fiction
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15 april 2022
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17
