A Scatter of Light

A few days later and pieces of this novel are still sticking with me. There were many loose ends not tied up ??? but I think that???s a good thing, because not everything can be neatly squared away in real life either. We never find out whether Aria reconnects with Steph, whether she connects with any particular queer label, and I think that???s a good thing. So much of Aria???s experiences are just presented to us without a lens or agenda toward a certain interpretation. I keep coming back to think about ways that ???illusion??? can apply to different aspects of the book, characters, plot, and finding more every time I return to the idea. The relationships between characters are complex, if sometimes not as fleshed out as they could be. I wanted this book to be longer, to learn more about the deeply interesting people who populate Aria???s life, but perhaps part of the coming-of-age genre is the solipsism: the focus on the narrator. Or: the illusion of the self as center of the world.

Definitely a coming-of-age book: The summer where Aria is literally caught between two selves. It recalled a lot of that exciting uncertainty for me. I loved the Lily and Kath cameos, too, even though they felt a little forced at times.

I did expect a little more engagement with questions of class and privilege, given that the book???s synopsis discussed Aria???s experience befriending ???a community of working-class queer folks???. The class discrepancies were touched on, occasionally prodded, but often by characters who weren???t Aria. Aria noted the class differences, but didn???t really engage with them beyond observation. She seemed too busy wrestling with her emerging queerness and her emergence as a nascent artist, as an inheritor of her family???s talents and downfalls, to also engage with the implications of class that separated her from Steph as well. And maybe that???s part of the point: she is no perfect person by any means, and still has growing up to do.