Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. Painful secrets rear their heads jobs go off the rails evictions loom. She begins dating women-soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.īut before long, trouble arrives. She’s moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, grueling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. But increasingly, our narrator finds it hard to keep up with Isora, who seems to be growing up at full tilt without her-and as her submissiveness veers into a painful sexual awakening, desire grows indistinguishable from intimate violence.īraiding prose poetry with bachata lyrics and the gritty humor of Canary dialect, Dogs of Summer is a story of exquisite yearning, a brutal picture of girlhood and a love song written for the vital community it portrays.Īll This Could Be Differentby Sarah Thankam Mathews (Sapphic Fiction)

Besides, she would do anything for Isora: gorge herself on cakes when her friend wants to watch, follow her to the bathroom when she takes a shit, log into chat rooms to swap dirty instant messages with strangers.

But she’s definitely not jealous that Isora’s mother is dead, nor that Isora’s fat, foul-mouthed grandmother has her on a diet, so that she is constantly sticking her fingers down her throat. That’s why sometimes she gets jealous of Isora, who already has hair on her vagina and soft, round breasts.

Isora is rude and bossy, but she’s also vivacious and brave grownups prefer her, and boys do, too. It’s summer, 2005, and our ten-year-old narrator is consumed by thoughts of her best friend Isora.

Far away from the island’s posh resorts, two girls dream of hitching a ride down to the beach and escaping their horizonless town. High near the volcano of northern Tenerife, an endless ceiling of cloud cover traps the working class in an abject, oppressive heat. My Brilliant Friend meets Blue is the Warmest Color in this lyrical debut novel set in a working-class neighborhood of the Canary Islands-a story about two girls coming of age in the early aughts and a friendship that simmers into erotic desire over the course of one hot summer. Dogs of Summer by Andrea Abreu, translated by Julia Sanches (Sapphic Fiction)

The Fairy Tale Trap by Emily Casey