But while the affair with Leapling gives the book its structure, the beating heart of At Certain Points We Touch is the first-person narrator’s journey — an epic exploration of the world, the self, and the coming-into-being of an artist. Overall, I appreciated what the author was trying to do, and I wish that the indulgence of the writing style didn’t bring me out of the story as much.

The definition of unflinching really, since it’s as much about characterizing the narrator as it is him, Thomas, now 4 years gone. That being said, I really didn’t like the epilogue as the final image of the book, and the format as a letter meant that there were some narrative threads that I wish had been tied a little tighter. Rather than about transitioning or bildungsroman or capturing the “scene”, it really is almost 400 pages of showing how her life was affected by Thomas while acting as an architect with some perspective, cobbling together who he actually was. Many people might find the subject matters of the book as well as those detailed in my review overwhelming. At Certain Points We Touch is a story of first love and last rites, conjured against a vivid backdrop of London, San Francisco and New York - a riotous, razor-sharp coming-of-age story that marks the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.Every single page is heavy with meaning and though the language is admittedly pretentious at times, it is in the best possible way. He’s described as selfish, professing both to kinks and to political views that are either ironic or despicable. With your right hand, you extend what I first read as a gesture of a gun towards me, then you wrap the two straightened fingers around the twisted strap of my bra and say, ‘What’s all this then?

There’s something too painful in remembering how full of potential everything seemed back then when the world was ours”. LARB publishes daily without a paywall as part of our mission to make rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts freely accessible to the public. This is a masterful novel, sharp and clever, that explores how we tell stories and what millennial queer life is like, almost haunted by the ghosts of previous queer culture in London, San Francisco, and New York.And despite its loose chronology and somewhat distant-feeling characters, the book has amazing sense of place and time. And I think I must be getting old, or I’ve read that story too often, because my patience for it is not so much worn thin as entirely dissolved.

Overall, while I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book, I'd definitely recommend the author, and I'm interested to see what they bring out next.

I found this so fascinating and so powerfully articulated: the often unacknowledged division between those in our community for whom complicated queerness is as incomprehensible as its opposite is to others. In classic bildungsroman fashion, we follow the narrator from San Francisco back to London, then into New York City’s demimonde — a high-wire life subsidized, barely, by table dancing — and then to London again. Therefore, should you have come upon my little review sent into the void of the inter-webs, please note that my sentiments are purely subjective. Perchance should you wonder, as JJ does, what is deeper than the confines of our physical insides, I feel that the discussion is pointless. There was no narrative drive to speak of - the story just seemed an interminable stream of pages with no ebb or flow or discernible structure - and the central axis (that two people who had no common ground whatsoever but some kind of intoxicating sexual chemistry in a brief open relationship for a couple of months) had no believability whatsoever.

i had thought that your predilection of for transfemmes and androgynes would serve me well, keep me safe, but in reality you didn’t ever consider any of us as serious candidates, did you? you died before I fell out of love with you" is the pain at the heart of this memoir/tribute to a fallen lover. At Certain Points We Touch is a story of first love and last rites, conjured against a vivid backdrop of London, San Francisco and New York – a riotous, razor-sharp coming-of-age story that marks the arrival of an extraordinary new talent. I did like this book for the most part but this did have some moments that just dragged and it made it harder for me to read.Entwining the arc of their lives with her own sometimes feels forced, but an awkward beginning gives way to vivid storytelling, and while drawing out commonalities – migration and belonging, racism and resilience are threaded throughout – Ramaswamy reflects with dreamlike clarity on memory and transience. particular scenes, such as a Barbra Streisand act whilst high on Vicodin - were fun and well observed but like I say, the individual passages could not add up to a cohesive whole. From an electrifying new voice, a "stone-cold masterpiece" (Olivia Laing) of queer friendship, first love, and unbridled youth.