Swimming in the Dark

This feels like CMBYN if you remove the grooming, honestly. The yearn for equally returned love and the yearning to just be happy, despite it all. Despite knowing you cant live in a country that persecutes you, you still try to. To live in hushed silence and to learn quietly not to speak out about anything. You have to make your path based on lies. You have to make up a character just to live. I love the quote “you cant make people love you the way you want them to” because it's so heartbreaking as a gay person to live like that. To see someone and know you won't get a happy ending, not being able to love someone freely and them not loving you back. Being gay feels like a rejection. Nobody wants you, and everybody's looking for you. It feels like a hunt where you're the prey. This book perfectly encapsulates that awful feeling, and the awful realisation of trying to get on with life despite all the lies and the secrets. Beautiful.