review: a sharp endless need
a sharp endless need- mac crane
summary: gay basketball players be gay and do basketball.
genre: romance, coming of age, sports.
a sharp endless need is truly a poetic and well written novel. it follows our main character mack through her senior year of high school playing basketball and falling in love with teammate liv.
i can't lie its been a little while since i finished this book so it's not completely fresh in my mind. also, to admit my biases, i am a big women's basketball fan, however i have never played and i only really watch it for the pretty women on the court...
i was really excited to read this book, the premise sounded interesting and i love a good piece of literary fiction. it took me a while to get my head around what was happening. but when i did i really enjoyed it!
mack as a character is really interesting, she is both so confident in herself and at the same time so lost. being in her inner thoughts really helps you to understand her and move through this journey with her. it is important to note that this story is a retelling from some future mack reflecting on the past- this laces the book with a sense of nostalgia. as you move with mack you also seem to fall blindly in love with liv. liv might be my favourite character in the whole book. she is interesting, well rounded and complex. as much as you love her, you're frustrated with her which gives an added layer of complexity to the story. the romance between was also bittersweet. there are moments you really root for them as a couple, and others you think that they'd be better off with someone else. but that is the complicated nature of high school love; seeing people with rose tinted glasses. in the end it's up to you as the reader to decide how you feel about their relationship but regardless it will always be a little foggy.
the other characters in the book however really fall flat. i don't remember any of their names, their personalities or storylines (because i don't think they really have any.) perhaps that's their point- to be supplementary to mack and liv, and if you want to; it does show how mack is an unreliable narrator in some aspects. she is very narrow focused. overall though, i think it would have been nice to know the side characters more and have them at least be memorable.
the romance is the focus of the book, however it touches on some other key themes, the most prevalent being the struggles of living in a small town. having a family in a small town, going to school in a small town, and being gay in a small town. mack clearly is overwhelmed by all of these and is desperately clinging onto liv and basketball to escape. it's heartbreaking but real. this was my favourite aspect of the book by far. that's not to say i didn't enjoy the romance at all, i did! but these other aspects and themes are what make the book worth reading.
another theme that should not be missed are the hints at mack being trans in some compacity. there are numerous times in the story where we explore how mack feels about her gender. these elements are well done, and provide representation for a very underrepresented community. it was again both heartbreaking and heartwarming to read.
the amount of alcohol and drugs in this book are quite overwhelming, like it's in almost every chapter. maybe i was just a very boring high schooler but sometimes it does get to a point in the book every it feels very unrealistic. it is relatively easy to brush-off if you're able too, but there are a number of times that i would get caught up in the shear amount of substance abuse that i couldn't focus on anything else.
the pace of the book felt very slow to me, but i think that is the cost of the poetic writing. there are some truly beautiful lines in this book that highlight mac crane is a fantastic writer. its easy to tell this is a personal piece of work for them. however, at times it was a struggle to get through. also, there is a lot of basketball in this book, and sometimes there is jargon that might be a little hard to understand for someone who knows nothing of basketball- however it will not change how much you enjoy the book.
overall, i did enjoy this book but not as much as i hoped. i had really hyped it up in my head to be something that it wasn't. as much as this book is a romance it is an exploration of queerness, growing up and finding yourself.
i tried not to say too much about the book in order not to spoil it!
TLDR; gay people playing basketball with a large helping of small town trauma. heartbreaking, hopeful and homosexual.
