With a title that hooked me immediately, beautifully lyrical prose
and a very punk opening line, there’s no denying that Mariah Stovall is an incredible new writer. Unfortunately, I do feel that I wanted to love this novel more than I actually did...Main character, Khaki is in a dead-end job and a lonely apartment when she receives an out-of-the-blue invite from her estranged friend who is throwing a party for her newly-adopted daughter. Whilst Khaki stalls her RSVP, we are taken on a journey of music and memories that reveal a co-dependent friendship.
As someone who loves music, I was intrigued by this but I felt a lot of the references were rather strong-armed into the narrative and added little value. There were other ‘punk’ motifs and references to aestetics that felt performative - less like an organic extension of the charcacters and more like an attempt to manufacture ‘cool’. This paired with the meandering prose lost me pretty quickly. I think the style was a good reflection of Khaki’s state of mind but in such long form, it didn’t work for me and I would’ve preferred to read it in short story or poetry form. That said, the prose itself is unrivalled and gorgeous so I’ll keep an eye on other work by this author.
Reviewed by Abi
Published on 13/02/25 by Influx Press
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