This novel has great potential It just wasn't for me it did not hold my attention sadly. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read it.

I will take every chance I get to read about books set in the early 2000s. Perhaps, it's the forever blooming nostalgia I feel but it brings me a sense of comfort and Marisa Crane's A Sharp Endless Need delivers that to the readers on a silver platter. I'm sure experiencing a coming-of-age in a small town is an overwhelming experience but to add in the pressures of perfectionism, queer longing, drugs and alcohol, takes the narrative to another level, certainly an unforgettable one to me.

Marisa Crane's debut novel is one of my all-time favorites. They have this brutal, lyrical way of writing stories, which feel yanked up from the quietest parts of myself. And so I was looking forward to reading a new novel from them, sure I would love it just as much. Spoiler: I did.

A Sharp Endless Need is about being young, defining the soft edges of yourself, being sure of nothing aside from what you want in the moment. It's also about basketball, and it's set in (I believe?) the aughts.

Despite not being a big fan of basketball, or sports in general, this was written so exquisitely that I couldn't look away. Reading ASEN was the closest I've gotten to feeling that specific, vibrant shade of young since living through it.

This novel offers a raw and emotional look at grief, identity, and ambition through the eyes of high school basketball star Mack Morris. The chemistry between Mack and Liv adds intensity both on and off the court, and the story touches on important themes like loss, desire, and self-discovery. While the writing is strong and the characters are compelling, the pacing occasionally drags, and some plot lines feel underdeveloped.
Thank you, NetGalley, for an advanced copy of this book.

This was beautifully raw. Crane dissects grief and love with surgical precision, leaving an indelible mark. I just love their wrtiting.

Marisa Crane's latest work focuses on Mack Morris during her senior year of high school. Instead of enjoying her perfect last hurrah before heading off to college, she finds herself facing her father's death a few weeks before school begins. Not only was he beloved by their entire town, but he was Mack's counterpart. He understood her on a level her mom never could, especially when it came to her purest love: basketball.

Mack wasn't sure how she'd make it through the year and decide which college to commit to without him—until Liv walked into her life. Mack sort of knew of Liv. She'd seen her playing for a rival high school's basketball team, but as soon as Liv swooped her away from her dad's wake to play one-on-one on a remote court, Mack knew he life would never be the same. Their relationship develops quickly, the two becoming practically inseparable within the span of a few weeks. Soon, Mack realizes she's falling for Liv—hard; but Liv's walls are up, and they're both too afraid of the small-town backlash of coming out.

Their fears don't stop there. A Sharp Endless Need is full of those feelings that seem to envelop every aspect of life on the edge of high school and adulthood: anxiety, uncertainty, claustrophobia, ambition, fear, curiosity, recklessness, lust, imposter syndrome, and experimentation.

Crane does an excellent job of capturing the enormity of these forces of adulthood that seem to be collapsing in on you as you're forced to make huge decisions that will affect the trajectory of your life without falling into the trap of melodrama that's often a pitfall with similar works. Her love of basketball shines through, guiding even the most apathetic to athletics through the highs and lows of the game with passion. Crane treats the budding relationship between Liv and Mack with such care and tenderness that it completely surpasses any feelings of cheesiness that novels with a central romance often have bubbling at the edges. Everything is handled so well that nothing about this high school-based work felt like YA in the slightest. Just a pleasure.

I saw myself in this it feels so good to be seen. I grew up in the suburbs of Philly and this was exactly what it was like from the lionshead puzzle caps to the midies.

4.5/5 stars, rounded up

Oh gosh, this story was so beautifully written! It was so full of passion and longing, both romantic and in regards to basketball and finding greatness.

I liked the early 2000s setting and the biographical-style of the narration. It felt so immersive and really let me get inside the MC's head. But I also liked that there was ambiguity and room for the reader to reflect.

I also loved all the little tidbits of gender exploration. A greedy part of me would have loved seeing that expanded on even further. But there was already a lot happening in the story so I'm not too mad that it was left as more of a background thing.

Anyways, I definitely want to read more from this author now! The prose was pure art and achingly beautiful. I need more!

Thank you to The Dial Press and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Not much happened in this book, but I loved the way that it was written. It was a really good coming of age story. Even though there's a lot about basketball, I don't think you have to care about it to care about this story. But if you do, then it'll give you another thing to appreciate about the story.

A Sharp Endless Need is a live-wire that electrifies you back to adolescence.

Do you remember when everything was so big, so unknown, so heart-wrenching, so important, and your heart was just an all-consuming open wound that, despite what you presented, made you feel like you were drowning in every emotion? That is this book.

Marisa Crane does such an incredible job of capturing that small time of the biggest feelings. She writes Mack's story with the straight forward bravado of a teenager who has it all figured out and then cuts you with a line that is so deep it reminds you that your passion, now a nurtured bird, was once violently crashing through a shell.

What's so beautiful about this book is that it hit me so hard despite the fact that I was/am a straight theatre kid. The feelings she is writing about are universal (not to take away the layers that comes with discovering your sexuality because that is obviously a journey that I can only support from the outside). Mack's intense love of basketball was wrapped up in so many things, it was the vehicle through which she understood herself and the world around her. I felt her desires and dreams like they were my own. I felt her fierce love for Liv, like I did when I was 17.
The writing is cutting. Marisa Crane couldn't have just typed this story out, it feels like it was written with the pen so hard that every word was scored into the paper.

If you are looking for a raw story to leave an imprint and make you <i>feel,</i> please pick this up. Support this art and this testament to coming of age.

Mack Morris, a star high school point guard, enters senior year facing two life-altering events: the sudden death of their father and the arrival of a talented new teammate, Liv Cooper. On the basketball court, Mack and Liv form an unstoppable duo; off the court, their connection deepens into a powerful, complicated romance that challenges the norms of their conservative Pennsylvania town. As Mack navigates grief, desire, and the pressures of college recruitment, they find themselves torn between ambition and self-destruction. With everything on the line, Mack must choose the future they truly want.

This book started off really strong and the writing really gripped me and pulled me in. It was a beautiful story about coming of age, love, and loss in the early 2000s, with a lot of basketball woven into the story. While I started off very intrigued and rooting for Mack, by the end of the book I was just ready to see how the book ended. The pacing slowed quite a bit and the book ended and let me with so many questions. There also felt like a lot of repetition of a lot of elements and I wish other topics would've been expanded on more. Overall, I did enjoy the story for the most part and if you want a sapphic, coming of age story about basketball, this is worth checking out!

Rating: 3/5
Spice: 2/5

Tropes:
Sapphic Romance
Sports Fiction
Coming of Age
Love and Loss
Grief

Thanks to The Dial Press, Marisa Crane, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. All thoughts are my own.

I went into this knowing very little, mostly drawn by the author’s name and a hunch it would be good. And it was. This is a quiet but emotionally charged novel about a teen girl trying to make sense of herself, her past, and what kind of future she’s allowed to imagine.

Mack is a high school basketball player in a small town in Pennsylvania, and whether you know basketball or not, the physicality of it becomes a kind of language for Mack, especially in the places where regular conversation fails.

The story is set in the early 2000s, and you can feel that in the atmosphere, in the way people talk, in the silence around queerness, in how tightly the characters are holding things in. Mack’s world is filled with tension. Her relationship with her mother is strained and often cold. Her father is gone, but his presence lingers through memories, grief, and the complicated way he introduced her to the game she loves. Most of her support system is fractured or unstable, and that bleeds into how she moves through the world.

What stood out to me most was how accurately the book captures the overwhelming urgency of being 17 or 18. There’s a deep fear of wasting time or making the wrong choice, and that fear shapes so many of Mack’s decisions. She’s caught between wanting to escape her town and not really knowing who she’ll be if she does.

The central relationship, with a new teammate, Liv, is tender, confusing, and emotionally raw. The story doesn’t offer easy resolutions about love, identity, or even friendship, and that honesty made it hit harder. Mack is not always kind, and she doesn’t always understand herself, but that felt right for where she is in life. Her contradictions felt believable.

The writing is lyrical without being too much. The author captures small moments with clarity, and there’s a lot happening just under the surface of the dialogue. It's a book that gives space for uncertainty and doesn't try to smooth out the sharp edges of its characters.

I really liked this!! It’s a story about figuring things out when you don’t have a clear guide, about the pressure of potential, and about the kind of love that’s hard to name. If you’re drawn to queer coming of age stories that are character focused and emotionally nuanced, this is one I’d highly recommend.

Thank you so much to Penguin Random House for inviting me to read this on NetGalley!

i had such high expectations for a sharp endless need, and it surpassed even those. this has already found its way to my favorites shelf. it’s full of longing, grief, and self-discovery. it’s a true coming of age, following high school basketball star and senior, mack morris, whose life gets turned upside down with an unexpected death followed by an unexpected arrival in her life.

this novel is deeply queer in every sense of the word, exploring sexuality at the forefront and gender in a quieter manner. it highlights the isolation and other struggles that queer teens faced in rural america during the early 2000s. it shows the turmoil that happens when teens are trying to fit themselves into boxes while also facing immense amount of pressure from themselves and others. it’s an emotionally-layered, dark, complex, and atmospheric story that will stay with me for a long time.

while this centers around basketball, you don’t have to be well-versed in the sport to enjoy this incredible coming of age story. BUT, if you do love basketball, you’re in for a treat. this is part love letter and part poetry about the game, specifically the first chapter. it also shows the uglier side of it too, not just the glory. it really put me in my feelings, as you may have deduced at this point.

tldr: please read this & also know that i will not be accepting any criticism of this at this time slash maybe ever.

• mack, the star point guard of her high school basketball team, who has recently lost her father, is thrown for a loop when transfer student liv joins their team. on the count, the pair have insane chemistry, leading them to game-winning victory. off the court, they fall into something more than friendship that feels entirely not allowed in their small town. an ode to coming-of-age, desire, and team sports, this book sees mack swept up in deciding between her ambition and her own self-destruction.
• this book was sweet & earnest, and also a bit hectic & messy, in a way that is so true to being a high school student figuring yourself out.
• i wasn’t expecting this book to be so much about grief as mack navigates her feelings about her father’s passing, but i thought it was really well done.

"A Sharp Endless Need" by Marisa Crane didn't really work for me. While I am a basketball fan and appreciated that aspect, I didn't really like the main characters. The drugs and alcohol didn't feel right or realistic for teen athletes. I did appreciate the atmosphere of early 2000s in a small town in Pennsylvania and the undercurrent of homophobia and self discovery.

While this story wasn’t the most enjoyable read I thought it was a serious coming of age tale with some really important messages. This story follows Mack as they are discovering who they are in all aspects of life in regard to love,gender, and what they want to do in life. Mack is a star basketball player who has feeling for her teammate Liv who is from a religious home. This book has a lot of dark topics but I feel like this type of coming of age story needs to be told more so people are aware of what people struggling with sexual orientation and disapproval from loved ones deal with. The writing was beautiful but a little too flowery for me but I really enjoyed the character development and look forward to reading more from this author in the future. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

Phew, this book was a whirlwind. A coming of age story told through basketball and the titular sharp, endless need — endlessly relatable although I never played basketball. The emotions and feelings and desperation felt by the characters was palpable on each page and the voice of the narrator was super well defined.

If you are looking for a yearning sapphic lit fic, this is your perfect summer read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A Sharp Endless Need is queer coming-of-age story about a young basketball player, Mack, as she navigates the recent death of her father and her emerging feelings for her teammate and friend, Liv.

The book is beautifully written, especially the sections that focus on Mack and Liv's connection. The characters also felt realistic to their age, which I think can be difficult to do. Their teenage worries, poor decision making, and the reaction to the difficulties in their lives felt appropriate. Mack's internal turmoil, especially around being queer, is captured so viscerally.

However, the challenges set up in the early chapters are never fully resolved. I enjoy basketball, and part of the reason I was interested to read this was because of the sports backdrop, but I think the book spends too much time on the sport and heavy-handed metaphors rather than the characters themselves. I would have liked more balance between the basketball games and the narrative themes. The time jumps were also a bit jarring; when I found myself getting more immersed or Mack's internal feelings were coming into focus, there would be an abrupt tonal shift. For such a short book, it started to grow repetitive.

I typically don't mind ambiguous endings, but this one felt frustrating. I found myself more invested in the story and the characters in the last few chapters, and the ending felt like a flat culmination of the story.

Between the pacing issues and wanting more focus on and development for the characters, I don't think this was for me.

2. A Sharp Endless Need” was a really good coming of age story. Trying to navigate life while being influenced by so many things it hard. Finding the flexibility that life requires when we realize things haven’t turned out the way we’d planned can be even harder.

I liked this a lot! It was very atmospheric with gorgeous writing and the depiction of lesbian longing and desire was so well done. Also the way it used basketball and linked it to sex and desire is very “You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other [wo]men” which worked so well for the time and setting and lead to great tension.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the digital ARC.