Deliciously dark and strange, this powerful and intense novella is all about the writing for me as Chang inscribes queerness through her extended dislocations: of storyline, of lexical form, of syntax, of bodies.

The writing is immediately striking for the way it is wrenched out of usual meanings and contexts: verbs, nouns and adjectives take on novel forms just as sentences buckle, bodies metamorphose and the boundaries of normative order dissolve. On a superficial level this recounts a story of obsession: Seven enacts a meeting with her childhood friend, Cecilia, and drifts into recalling their haunting, eroticised relationship, abruptly terminated. But that bare description of story doesn't come even close to encapsulating what makes this narrative rare and extraordinarily fertile as a piece of writing.

I'd say this will appeal to readers who love metaphor and mythology, who enjoy being tantalised with intertexts and want a narrative to liberate the imagination rather than close it down into a set track. There are elements here which repeat and reverberate both externally and through self-referentiality: the dissolution of bodily integrities, women and crows, the erotic and the cruel. This is the sort of book one could write a thesis on - always a positive in my eyes! And it sent me straight out to snap up Chang's back catalogue.
<I><blockquote>When I reached up to touch my face, I felt no protrusions, no new bones inflecting my surface, and yet, when Cecilia and I looked at each other, we saw them: beaks mountaining out of our mouths, rooted to the shadows of our jawbones. Beaks shining like the perfect darkness preserved inside a belly.</I></blockquote>

This was incredibly lyrical and beautiful to read, I loved the prose and the way it was written. I also found the female friendship and Cecilia’s mysterious yet powerful character very interesting to read about. However, I unfortunately struggled with the time jumps! I never really knew if I was reading past or present and that made it all a little confusing. Still, gorgeous writing.

Where do I begin? I am probably forever going to be very stuck on this. Whilst the main message of this book/plot was delicious, I don't think it's possible to avoid the fact that most of this book was just in depth shit and piss. I had a conversation with a friend about K Ming Chang, as this was my first read and my friend had read several others. Whilst the gross aspect of Changs writing seems consistent, as does covering taboo topics, I don't see how in this particular book (for the most part) it added to the story. Here and there, sure. But 75% of it? I was concerned, yet it was so deeply and beautifully written that I equally couldn't put it down. You can see my dilemma - but its not a bad dilemma to have

Cecilia by K-Ming Chang is written in a very lyrical and poetic way which adds to the strangeness and intensity of it. The use of language conjures up the protagonist's obsessive friendship as she grows up.

Cecilia is a novel about the intensities of love and friendship, as a woman reencounters her childhood best friend who she has been obsessed with for a long time. Seven is a cleaner at a chiropractor's office, and when a client turns out to be Cecilia, her childhood best friend, she is plunged into the past, remembering the messy, obsessive connection they had.

This is a book so intensely about character that it is hard to describe the narrative at all: in the present, they meet again, and get a bus, and then everything is snippets from the past told by Seven as the narrative, exploring Cecilia and their childhood together and also Seven's own family. Particularly notable is the intensity and weirdness of Seven and Cecilia's friendship, not just the boundaries between desire and love and friendship, but the boundaries even between their respective bodies and bodily fluids. At times it is disgusting, at times poignant, and sometimes strangely surreal in ways that might make you lost. The book (at least in the UK edition) has an incredible cover that reflects the weird darkness of the book, so taking the vibes from that rather than the actual blurb might be the best way to approach the book.

Cecilia is a dark, intense novella about Seven and her reuniting with her childhood friend. It's undoubtedly well written but, in terms of style, it's just a little too dark for me.

While I do prefer a book that delves deep into characterisation, I also need a more coherent plot structure and Cecilia lacks this. I can appreciate the skill of the Chang's writing but I struggled to engage and, by the end, found it quite a slog. I can imagine that fans of darker, queer, body horror genres would love the book, it just wasn't for me.

I found this exploration of a young woman, Seven, and her reconnection with her childhood best friend in adulthood to be thoroughly engaging. Their intense and occasionally erotic friendship from their girlhood is examined, providing a captivating narrative. The writing is strikingly intense, teetering on the edge of being off-putting but always pulling back just in time to keep readers invested. It leaves you eager to uncover what comes next and how far Chang will push the boundaries.

Interesting at times but I found some of it made me cringe a little. I suspect feeling uncomfortable is the point but it just wasn’t 100% for me.