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This review first appeared in New York Journal of Books https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...“Everything in Boston is about no one noticing.”In Sketchtasy, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore attempts to take a page from Bret Easton Ellis or Chuck Palahniuk, with a fierce, glittery, fast paced romp through 1990s Boston. While not as well executed as Glamorama or Invisible Monsters, the book tries to create the dreamlike quality and thrilling pace of those novels. The story follows Alexa, a twenty-som...
i love being lucky enough to get to read queer fiction before it releases! eep! i feel bad that people have to wait for October for this book - Mattilda is such a queer literary treasure <3
The author demands that you put some effort into the first half of the book, following Alexa through a revealing, dense stream of enhanced/suppressed consciousness. While charging self-destructively through sensual overload, suppressing the trauma, somehow Alexa moves into a place to confront and continue. We readers are aware of the enormous cost being paid for any eventual future closure, and fear for Alexa constantly.Alexa's private trauma is playing out while the community is being torn into...
Mixed feelings about this. At times the content was dark, spoken on a time where AIDS was killing so many gay men, when LGBTQ were abondoned by family members, often turning to prostitution due to not being hired places, being used and abused as a fantasy, rampant drug abuse and rape in this LGBTQ, discrimination, depression, the underground nightlife, trauma, etc. The dark moments are where I connected most. I felt it, I felt what he was saying. But then..... he often lost me with his style of
Sketchtasy made me feel like I was on just as many drugs as the narrator, which was amazing. The voice and style of this novel was flawless yet overwhelming at times. I wish there was a bit more continuity between chapters. It was hard to conceptualize the depth of relationships when characters went in and out so quickly.
This is my first (but definitely not last) book by this author. I was absolutely blown away by how much I enjoyed this novel. Set in 1995 and using first person stream-of-conscious writing style I was thrown into a whirling spinning drug laden world. I must be in the target demographic, because I could grasp every mid 90's references. The writing is fluid so I felt as if I were coasting through each 'trip', revelation, and self discovery seamlessly. I felt a total connection with the primary cha...
a gorgeous story of how desire and loss cling to one another in the fast-paced backdrop of 90s boston. i’ve never been particularly interested in boston but this plus eileen myles has me curious about queer boston histories outside the suffocating university presence. really skilled drug writing. that said, stream of consciousness narratives have never really been my thing (tragic as i love a good party story), though sycamore bends the form effectively.
https://youtu.be/FfJyyYzg7zE
Content warning in this book: child sexual abuse, incest, and rape. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore has broken all the rules in this incredible work. I've read a good slab of her non-fiction, and in this one fiction read, I find I love it as much as I love her non-fiction. The way she chaotically weaves through first and second point of views in a stream of consciousness that somehow still makes sense, is incredible. Stream of consciousness writing is a style that is so frustratingly difficult, desp...
Ah, youth. They believe they have so much to say. The trials of Alexa are written in a stream of consciousness style--long paragraphs, little content. Finding a place in the world, when you surround yourself with drugs, prostitution, bar hopping, possible incest, and other shadows of life, has been told much more successfully by others. Thanks to Treeline for this electronic edition.
Sketchtasy held so much promise yet fell incredibly short of my hopes for an LGBTQ book. It’s pride month and as a flaming dyke (not a butch – look it up) I am reading every gay and lesbian book I can get my queer little hands on.Sketchtasy reads like what I can only imagine is a heavy drug haze. As someone whose never touched a hard drug, its hard to immerse myself in a story surrounded by drugs. Especially when the main character is perpetually snorting coke, ingesting K, and combating it with...
I found this book almost hard to read — I remember those days, and I remember those people. A very real portrayal of the way some people lived and died.
This is the second queer novel I've read this year set in the 1990s & it's been fun to revisit that time and place again through these talented authors. Sycamore has such an incredible voice and her characters glitter on the page. I was completely sucked into the world of Alexa and her friends -- the drugs, the tricks, the late-night club scenes. Totally captivating and frequently heartbreaking. Highly recommended for fans of Michelle Tea and Andrea Lawlor.
So well written it is exciting to read.
I don't even know how to begin talking about this book so I'll let Julie Buntin do it for me:"Every sentence in Sketchtasy is a living thing, fierce and funny and a little bit dangerous—a voice made of coke dust and club lights, cut with crackling insight. I was completely addicted to the story of Alexa's search for connection, set in the gritty Boston nightclub scene in the 90s. Nobody writes like Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore—most writers wouldn't dare try." —Julie Buntin, author of Marlena
Glowing review to come! I loved this book!
Early in my publishing career I read a short story by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. If I recall, it was only a few pages long, but I never, ever forgot it. The voice! I never forgot it. I noticed over the years that Sycamore was publishing books, but my (long-subconscious) fear of no author living up to my first experience with them kicked in, and I never got around to any of them. Until now! When I won a copy of Sketchtasy in a Shelf Awareness giveaway, I was psyched! And when I read a few pages...
It took me two starts to get into the book and that was after I heard Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore read from "Sketchtasy." The second round I was ready and heard her voice, but there are many characters, and the book moves so fast that I had to use a notepad and write down the names so I could track the connections. The book is truly genius, written from within action from start to finish. Alexa, the main character has an alternate name, Tyler, that she cannot face. That boy was abused, and she h...
TW for this book: drugs, incest, rape, theft, AIDS illness and deaths, and hot gay sex.At first I was pretty annoyed at all the descriptions of different highs, but Mattilda's descriptions are so beautiful. The drug use is an important theme as it affects every aspect of her life. After a while I realized that the prominence of the descriptions reminded me of Kerouac or Kesey or someone else I read 20 years ago.I'm from Boston and was an active member of the (sober part of the) queer youth scene...
Struggled with the first couple of chapters as the writing is really dense and confused me before I got into the rhythm but so glad I perservered, stunning evocation of trashcan queer icons suffering and stumbling through the 90s. Big recommend for fans of Valencia and the like. Trigger warnings for most things.