I had two of Chloe Caldwell’s books in my backpack, and so I read them back to back. Women by Chloe Caldwell is her more well-known book, and I do think it it has the most literary merit and staying power of her work that I’ve read so far. Caldwell offers a very focused, very detailed immersion into an intense, obsessive, and destructive relationship with a woman.

This book is not the triumphant lesbian novel I think people want it to be. It is unclear to the reader the extent that Caldwell is lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual, and this is a key question throughout the book–for Caldwell and for her readers.

A clear look at the experience of being intensely caught up in forbidden love is the point of the book, I think, and also just that experience of living life as a human with desires, stupidity, and pleasure, plus some good old fashioned bed rot and mental illness. Most readers with a beating heart will recognize at least some pieces of this book.