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amvs1111's review
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Deadnaming, Transphobia, and Death of parent
tomatocultivator's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
We are each a body, in a larger system of communities and families and contracts. But we are also the even more complex and confusing environments of our own minds - layered matrices of memories, emotions, constructed identities, and true selves. <i>OKPsyche</i> follows an unnamed transitioning woman in a small, unnamed Midwest American city as she continues to learn who she is, struggling to unwrite the trauma of her closeted past while finding her place in an uncertain present. There are moments of concrete reality in DeNiro's story - an estranged son and ex-wife, a sick mother, an aggressively staring stranger. However, her real skill is puling us deep into our narrators' interior life. A life where memories overlay themselves onto the waking world. Where self-care can include a trip into a very near and very possible dystopian future that accents the challenges of our dystopian present. Friends who exist, and friends who exist only in her mind.
With moments of magical realism, expressionistic self-imaginings, and a narrator more unreliable to herself than to the reader, DeNiro has created a deeply affecting and readable short novel. Her narrators angst feels real, as do her moments of clarity and her path forward to love (inward and outward). I really loved it too.
With moments of magical realism, expressionistic self-imaginings, and a narrator more unreliable to herself than to the reader, DeNiro has created a deeply affecting and readable short novel. Her narrators angst feels real, as do her moments of clarity and her path forward to love (inward and outward). I really loved it too.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia
Minor: Sexual violence and Sexual content
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