It’s strange how a book like this—small-town rural Ohio circa 2015—can feel like an artifact of the past and yet an ongoing present. Mike is middle-aged, gay, single, and lost, with no cultural script for how someone like him can find connection and happiness. He believes the best he can hope for is hookup apps and casual flings, until he meets the capricious Matteo and the enigmatic Dave, who each challenge him in different ways.
What stood out to me is that, just like Mike without a script, this book has no formula. It’s not a romance that would fit in that genre; it’s not quite litfic of a midlife crisis either. It feels like it’s mapping new terrain, page by page, stuck when Mike is stuck, forging new paths as Mike forges them, unpredictable the way real life is. It could have gone any number of ways right up until the end, which makes the outcome all the more poignant. As another review on Goodreads says, it opens up portals of possibility, with a tough conversations along the way. I like that. I like the idea that those portals are there to find. New scripts to be written, new paths to forge, new maps to make. With a bit of guts, with a bit of love, with a bit of honesty and vulnerability. May we all be so brave.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.