I’m judging a 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

I dunno. My scholarship is about the liminal space between necropolitical nonfiction and fairy tales so I love this beginning so much. Fairy tales seem a good place to explore grief and violence without the more pervasive threat of state surveillance… this beginning is fun “The mother worked the night shift, meaning we only heard her footsteps when dawn was about to crack. Sometimes she crept into our room and pulled the sweaty hair from our faces and kiss-kissed us. Sometimes she straightened the covers, the colonial bedspread, the tiger print throw from Dollar Haven. Slaap, kindje, slaap, daar buiten loopt een schaap. The night sky changed from a purple bruise to a rust-sweet surprise, and we often awoke singing along with her. Een schaap met witte voetjes, die drinkt zijn melk zo zoetjes. We rose, dressed without concern, ignored our bellies, opened the front door. Slaap, kindje, slaap. On a good day people would come up to us on the street and say, Lady, you got yourself some gorgeous kids! We loved that. Yogurt, eggs, fresh Wonder bread from CTown, a pair of Almond Joys—but only if we promised to always listen! I don’t want to tell you kids again! In another life, the mother had been a little Dutch girl—her father wore wooden shoes, just like a fairy tale—and because she had been disowned by him for falling in love with Zwarte Piet, we became her burden, her impossible dreams. To fight the impossible foe. Sleep, children, sleep. The three of us were colored three different shades of dark (think: coconut, fig, and raisin), but people on the street understood we belonged to one another: the mother’s nose was our nose, her crow’s feet ours, too. People would gush: Lady, can I steal one of these kids from you, the pair of them look so daggone cute!”

I need to read more. Now.

Dear Miss Metropolitan started out with an interesting main character and storyline but I found it to be deeply dark and disturbing. The style of writing, short chapters, mixed with reports, images, etc, made it challenging to stay with the narrative. Overall, it was an interesting book, different from what I typically read, but it was too painful to enjoy.

The stream-of-consciousness writing style, along with the changes in narrators, made this book a bit challenging to read. However, it was well worth the effort. Although the story is horrific and heartbreaking in so many ways, there is so much love and tenderness in it as well. It may take me a little while to feel ready to move on to my next book. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC for review.

I received an advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review

Lushly written, very dark but always a pleasure. If you can write a book about kidnapping, rape, and suffering, but still make it comic and (oddly enough) affirming, you’re a genius and I look forward to your next effort