Miranda Mattas

Best line ever “I’m trying to tell you that post-colonialism turned me gay”. Ok best line of the moment! There is soooo much here! I can’t praise it enough. On the one hand I’m a hetero/cis white woman so you’d think I wouldn’t relate, but in reality I grew up in inner cities and “urban” (read poor) areas and went to suburban (often rich) white schools and graduated the same year as the author. So the pop-culture reference get me hard. Everything from Salmon Rushdie to Madonna to Hedwig and the Angry Inch… but even more so I deeply related to what I think we all can on some level. The feeling of being othered. Even when you “should” fit in. Of questioning and forming your identity (and reforming and deconstructing and forming again… you get the idea). And hell yes the fear of suburbia and (shudder) the woods around them. The first time I was in the woods not far outside of Baltimore I was 21. During the day it was pretty if unnerving and oddly foreign feeling. Once it was dark I said to my companion “Oh HELL no. You have taken me to get me killed land! Get me out of here, I know how this movie ends!” R. Eric if you are reading this feel free to use “Get me killed land” in your next novel! Suffice to say R. Eric Thomas is a master with words. Even better though, he understands the human condition. In a way many of us take 40+ years to get. Thank you to my public library in San Diego for making this a book of the month selection. It deserves all the awards.