~This book is at times strange, confusing and increadably infuriating and at times sweet and even joyful. This certainly wouldn't be a story I would give to my parents to make them understand better about me being a lesbian, and it does contain some sex so I wouldn't recommend it to kids, either. The language is at times really confusing but I found it better towards the end (I'm not exactly sure whether I myself got used to it, or it's just that the first chapters were written with a lot less~~ experience than the latter ones). Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this book since even beyond all her cynicism the heroine still had the sort of excuse I guess for her darkened vision of this world and she showed times and times again that she can be quite tender and loving.~

i took many writing classes when i was younger. a popular exercise was to give your neighbor a starting sentence and an ending sentence, and they had to write either a poem or story around those lines. this novel has five or six great pages in the beginning, and one or two good pages towards the end... but the 200 or so pages in between are awful. the storyline lags terribly. if you want a book about lesbians, read lesbianism made easy by helen eisenbach. if you want a book about mental hospitals, read girl interrupted by susanna kaysen. if you want a "brilliant novel of friendship and defiance," try of mice and men. but this book does not weave together these tempting storylines. while a book about a gay mental patient who befriends an older deaf woman is really a great idea, this book was a dud. one star for the idea, one for the blood at the end, and one for the first few pages. sorry, ms. arnold.