#Like ACTUALLY a really well written plot device I'm enamored with it

[emile-hides]

I am shaking Zeref like a wet paper bag what a guy what a character

[misireads]

Detroit by Katri Lipson

[ physical book, read in finnish ]

the story of two young ice hockey players whose careers abruptly end at the height of their NHL stardom: one of them, timothy, is paralyzed from neck down after a particularly nasty tackle in one of their matches; the second, nathan, goes haywire after the accident and gets himself fired from the team. despite their prior closeness, nathan refuses to go see tim in the rehab facility for over a year. the story's perspective jumps between the two boys, tim's nurse at the facility, and a random hooker that nathan hires to keep him company while he's psyching himself up to go see his best mate and the love of his life

➕ wow wow wow WOW, this was the first book in a long time that took me on a genuine rollercoaster ride. no expectations, many low moments, and i was blown away at the very end. honestly there were so many spots where i was about to drop this, and the fact that i didn't and was thoroughly satisfied and enamored by the end is just positive positive positive to me. this is a very strange book. in a good way.

➕ it's LGBT! lots of very complicated LGBT feelings too. i went in having no idea i was about to get some very dramatic gay hockey boys. damn. like this was some kind of modern gay romeo&juliet tier shit. absolutely blown away, again. this is the main reason i wanted to keep reading let's be real

➕ this author has a mad way with words. sometimes i didn't quite understand the allegories but it's the kinda thing that you just go with the flow. there were also some interesting style switches between different chapters which i just might steal for my next fic tbh

➖ initially i didn't know at all whether i even wanted to read this and was kind of ready to drop it after 20 pages because it's confusing as hell and you don't even know who the main character is. it starts with descriptions about timothy in the rehab facility but there's a lot of stuff from his nurse's and control freak mother's PoV and other random gunk that you're not sure which one actually matters. in my notes i've written "i just hope the boy is gay." well the boy turned out gay but then the hooker suddenly comes in, with nathan who is not mentioned as nathan at that point so my mental image of that initial scene was that we suddenly jumped to talk about middle-aged bums with no connection to the first chapter, "what even." then it dawned on me that oh. oh that's the boycrush? and the hooker is 19 years old? um… weird but ok.

➖ that's where minus number two comes in, the way the dialogue is written is kinda insufferable at most times. that's why the 20yo characters sound like middle-aged drunks. or alternatively like edgy 13 year olds, which i'm more aligned to believe from young jock men, but reading it is annoying as hell.

➖ janet, the blind prostitute, is such a… like why is she even here. does her character exist just to be a plot device in the last couple of chapters? because i didn't get a thing out of her otherwise. she has no character arc like the boys do, no background, nothing. i thought there would be an actual point to her being blind tied to tim also being disabled but no not really.

➖ up until the end i was so confused what this book was even about, like plot-wise. it sure is vague and just kind of. meandering?? as hell. originally it's set up in a way that makes you think that the boys' reunion will be the grand ending and that's the story, but no there's quite a lot still left at that point. although the ending was worth it, it was still kinda… like the arc of the story is strange.

⭐ score: 4 -- this purely thanks to the ending. i just liked it that much. i really mean it when i say this is the only book in memory i remember closing and putting down thinking WOW! to myself.