Mudflowers is a novel about a woman looking for love and self after her mother's death, whilst navigating changing relationships. Sophie lives in Toronto, where she makes stained glass mosaics and doesn't return home to Newfoundland after her mother's death. She spends most of her time with Alex, a guy who is her childhood best friend and sometimes lover, but then she meets Maggie, a woman she finds herself fascinated by, and Sophie must work out her relationships to both of them.

This is an at times stream of consciousness style book that fits into the "sad-ish millennial looking for meaning and being a bit of a disaster" genre. You get access to a lot of Sophie's thoughts and memories in the narrative and it's the kind of book that maybe if you find her relatable, you'll particularly enjoy it, as I think people often find with this genre. However, the thing I didn't really get from the first person narration was much about how Sophie actually felt about Alex and Maggie, not in-depth.

There's not much going on, plot-wise, as you might expect from this kind of literary fiction, but I did think there was going to be more interesting stuff going on with the central relationships which are described in a blurb as a "complicated love triangle", but actually after some initial revelations, mostly it seems something that Sophie is fairly apathetic to. That in itself is maybe interesting, but the book didn't really delve into exploring the relationships formed and the potential of Sophie's connections to Alex and Maggie, however they might be. There's a middle part set in France that felt fairly pointless and after that, what happened felt quite cursory. As a book that focuses on a woman loving both a man and a woman, I also felt that there was surprisingly little engaging with this and the kinds of queer relationships and families people form, despite it seeming like a major point of the book.

I was expecting more of an interesting exploration of the idea of a love triangle and queer ways of subverting that (or failing to), but Mudflowers just felt similar to a lot of other books out there, engaging with the protagonist's feelings but never quite going deep enough for me.

As a Sally Rooney fan, i adored this. The characters were so real and the writing style was so good. I loved this book.

I quite liked this, despite what I think could fairly be described as significant flaws. The plot is thin and uneven, and the way the relationships between the central characters resolved felt unsatisfying and unfair. I also think it's pretty misleading to label this as an LGBT novel—or, worse, a specifically lesbian one. The relationship between Sophie and Maggie is the only same-sex relationship even mentioned, and in addition to being short-lived, it's frequently described as being not really romantic or sexual in comparison to the relationships both characters have with men, which not only receive described sex scenes and declarations of love and meaningfulness but also an amount of time and narrative weight that is mostly absent in the Sophie/Maggie relationship.

That said, I do think there's a lot to like here. The characters are specific and well-formed, and—frankly—they made me feel things. Things being, sometimes, rage, but what can you do. While the prose style is quite different, I can see this appealing to fans of Sally Rooney-type stories, where the cool but not quite likable characters and vague philosophical musings take precedence over plot. The prose style itself was also interesting to me—kind of hazily cinematic and meandering, following sometimes a kind of dream-logic.

I also think this would also be popular with people who, like me, feel nostalgic for a now bygone era of semi-ironic hipster-isms and twee quirkiness. The narrative style (and narrator Sophie) embody a sincerity and innocence that remind me of the books and movies I loved of as a teenager—Rookie Magazine, Joe Meno novels, Greta Gerwig's Frances Ha. Despite its flaws, I found it very charming.

Mudflowers is Aley Waterman’s first novel and it follows Sophie in the year after her mother’s death. The book is told in first person POV from Sophie. The story takes place in Toronto where the apartments are small and everybody is twenty seven. Sophie and Alex are childhood friends but also lovers. Sophie ends up meeting Maggie who is a poet and she develops an infatuation. I am giving this three stars because it was very readable and quick to get through and the story was fine. However, I do think this novel was just too short and the story honestly felt empty. I deeply felt the parts about mothers and how Sophie felt about her mother. But other than that the love triangle that was pitched in the synopsis just wasn’t a love triangle. I never felt any connection between Maggie and Sophie and there was not enough build up for me to believe it. It all just felt like the author was trying too hard which is understandable considering this is a debut. That said, this was not a bad book at all. I just think this was pitched incorrectly and when this book is released it will find its people and I can see many people loving it.

“mudflowers” is both a character study and an insight into the horrors of modern dating. sophie and her boyfriend alex are in love, but neither have had the Big Feeling about each other. when sophie meets carefree euphoric maggie, she finally gets that feeling. as her relationship blossoms with maggie in a unicorn hunting fashion, she might lose alex in the process.

this is not a lesbian romance, this is a bisexual disaster romance-esque horror. the writing is very stream of consciousness and has moments of great brilliance. it is well written, engaging, but the ending let me down and left me wanting more. i really enjoyed this novel, and it was a fun read. i just wish it wasn’t painting bisexual women as cheaters and overly promiscuous.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review!