A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

Elsie is struggling to adult in London. She’s a poet, but it’s hard to make that pay. She had a rough childhood, and is having a rough-ish adulthood. She’s behind on her rent and gets evicted, so she moves in with her childhood best friend, Juliet, who once admitted to being in love with her. Not sure why that was such a big deal given that Elsie is a lesbian herself, but apparently she stormed off and refused to talk to J again. So J is moving on with a douche of a man. Elsie then loses her job at a dive bar, and is struggling to find a new one. There’s lots of drugs and lots of casual sex, because Elsie just can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that she and her best friend are in love. Finally, she wins a poetry competition and gets a job, and admits she loves J, but J has her own problems. Douche man can’t handle her camming. There’s a nice dramatic car accident but everything works out ok cos it’s gotta, right?

The best thing about this book was the poetry, of which there was nowhere near enough. Honestly, I should have just read the poems and not bothered with the rest. The hardest thing about reading this book was that a couple of characters had non-stereotypical pronouns – all well and good except the author kept getting them mixed up, using both they and she in the same sentence about the same character, multiple times.

Some will appreciate this novel specifically for the POC and LGBTQI+ voices it brings, but unfortunately the writing is not brilliant.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review. I’m sorry I didn’t like it as I expected to.