I devoured this book. This is the first book by Mac Crane that I read and what drew me to it was that it is a coming-of-age story and gay love story in a rural PA, Crane nailed the rural PA experience of getting drunk at 7-11 and in Wawa parking lots. I felt like I knew Crane and that they must have known exactly what my adolescence was like. Like perhaps we were drunk in the same bowling alley turned local nightclub--turns out we grew up in the same area so this makes sense.

This book broke my heart and also mended it. What Crane captured so well was the fallibility of adults, even those with the purest of intentions like Mack's dad and Coach Puck. They captured the longing of being a young queer person in rural America in the early 00s. If you are put off by a sports novel, don't be. I do not follow any sports let alone know anything about basketball and yet Crane's prose drew me into the world in a way that piqued my interest. This is a book I wish I had in high school but am equally as thrilled to have it now.

Every time I finish a book by Marisa Crane I feel an overwhelming urge to kneel at their feet and thank them profusely, but I think that could come across as a little weird, so I’m gonna write this review instead. This book was so good I felt sick when I finished it. Crane’s writing skills will forever keep me coming back for every single piece of writing they put out. I will admit, I have little interest in reading about high school girls (stoked for the sapphic basketball storyline though), but I knew that if Marisa Crane was writing it, it would be excellent. And I was correct. I believe it’s a testament to the writing that I am giving five stars to a book on a subject matter that I would not generally find interesting. The prose in A Sharp Endless Need is beautiful not because it’s shiny and pretentious, but because it’s gritty and real and unashamed in the way it cuts to the heart of who we are as humans. That always has been, and always will be, what I love about Marisa’s work. Grief, loss, pining, love, and growing up are so realistically yet tenderly written in a way that makes me want to have compassion for my younger self. And maybe even the current me, too. I highlighted so much of this eBook, I can’t wait to get my hands on a hardcopy to annotate.

Thank you so much to The Dial Press for this eBook ARC.

I’m not really sure how to feel about this book. To start out, there were plenty of things I loved. I thought the tension and chemistry between Mack and Liv was really well done, and their relationship felt accurate to what it feels like to be a gay teen crushing on a best friend. I also really appreciated the characterization of Mack, as well as her internal monologue. It felt very true to being a senior in high school with all the scary, unknown feelings of the future that come with it.

However, I also struggled with this book a lot. It felt slow at times, and it made it hard for me to get excited for what comes next. I also was really confused for much of the basketball matches/sections; as someone who’s never been into sports or known much about it, a lot of the language in these parts were really baffling to me. I appreciate what this book did and captured within Mack’s character and storyline, but I’m not sure it was totally for me, which is a shame because it has so many thematic elements I usually love.

2.5/5 ⭐
Thanks netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for my unbiased review!

I love books about coming of age and this did leave me wanting a more. More character development and more attention to the themes presented (e.g. self harm). It felt like some pivotal moments were brushed over.

I think it relies too heavily on basketball and alienates readers that don't love the game but I think if you're a queer or lesbian reader you could look past this!

I loved that this was set in the early 2000s as I too was growing up at this time too!

All in all this wasn't a bad book (I thought the writing and the topics were interesting), I just think it could be better!

This book is hard to review because objectively I can see what it is doing and appreciate that it is following through on it’s own premise, but subjectively it could be hard to read, even though it was written well. There’s a lot of time caught on the edge of making a decision, or even acknowledging one needs to be made, and things cycle back and back and back to the same place. I did find it effective at times, but other times I just felt very separate from the story as Mac feels from her own life. I will say these feel like some of the most believable teenagers I’ve read about in a while - communicating horribly and just being emotionally messy throughout. The way that certain things can’t be said no matter how many times it’s approached was one of the ways the cyclical nature of this book worked for me. Something that didn’t work was the ending, which felt kind of rushed and unresolved.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

I very much enjoyed this book. The writing was great and the characters were well developed. I hope to read more from this author in the future.

We get to spend time with Mack as she learns about sexuality and herself, grief and drugs, and that fear that you might only want one thing and it’s already fleeting.

Here’s the thing: I love the style and the voice and the characters— flawed and honest and a bit too clear under the microscope. This book felt humid in that like way weather surrounds you and makes you sweat and slightly uncomfortable and self conscious. This is all complimentary.

If you played softball, basketball, soccer, or basketball in middle/high school and didn't know where to look when you changed in the locker room, boy do I have some news for you.

So many parts of this felt so incredibly real. I don’t have anything cohesive to say other than this is my favorite of 2024 and I will think about parts of it for a long long time. I absolutely savored and devoured this book.

Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

(Sorry, I publixhed this on 11/3/2024 and forgot to update NetGalley)

Phenomenal! Hooked after the first chapter.

I loved the use of physicality instead of words in some places; the act of an action being stronger than inaction. The metaphors felt very pointed especially in relation to basketball. And I know next to nothing about sports, but I love how it sets a background for Crane’s diction. Crane has a strong hold on their authorial voice and a sharp eye for wordplay. You don’t need to understand anything about basketball to know what’s happening.

Desire, the mess of life, complicated feelings about gender and sexuality, and grief are all very prominent themes. It felt real, it was messy and toxic and somehow an incredibly real read of queer longing. Longing for something more and something better.

I liked the openness of the ending it feels very real to leave with questions unanswered and problems unsolved. There’s both a grief and a pleasure to not knowing what happens between Mack and Liv, the thoughts of what could be if the circumstances of their youth was different.

It’s a raw expression of early 2000’s queer identity, desire, (sports!), youth, and what’s beneath the raw meaty surface of what it all means.

Reading this book made me nostalgic for a past I never had. Beautifully tragic, the anxiety of growing up queer in small town in the early aughts are felt through Mack's complicated, and at times toxic, relationship with Liv. You want Mack to figure out their identity and life beyond basketball but understand that teenagers rather learn from words of advice. Actions have consequences and lack of communication can destroy promising things are both hard lessons to learn, and this book is a great example of learning through mistakes. This story is outside my usual genre, but I connected with the fears of not being good enough outside of one thing and feeling the pressure of those around you.

A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Cane is a coming of age novel following a start point guard named Mack after the death of her father and the arrival of a new teammate named Liv. It is a book of self discovery, identity, and first loves. A book about grief, yearning, and gender. And I absolutely LOVED it.

It’s devastating yet thought provoking. It’s intimate yet bone crushing. It has wonderfully written characters I could not believe how attached I grew to. Mack and Liv, in particular, were like yin and yang—tethered together—which the author does a good job in illustrating. I really enjoyed reading their slow burn romance.

But most importantly, I was blown away by the prose—it’s poetic style—and how the author uses the art of basketball to explain our lead character’s feelings (Mack). Our characters do not always speak through words, but through their bodies. They are able to talk without speaking—a primal language.

I absolutely cannot wait for publication day. I will be recommending this one to everyone I know.

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Rating: 4.25/5
This review will also be posted on my Instagram on publication date (May 13).

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I am so attached to every single character, even the side characters. I loved that Crane kept alluding to that ending but I couldn't pin point what would happen and I was devastated in the best way. Mack is truly a character for the ages. I was so worried because I DNF-ed Exoskeletons but this is a phenomenal coming of age book that every queer person should read.

Of the 323 books I read in 2024, this was in my top 5! 6 out of 5 stars.

Ok, so here's my longer review: do yourself a favor and go preorder this now. You've got two basketball teammates in a small town, and our main character desperately wants out of her shitty small town and is willing to do anything to get out. Her mother is also homophobic, and there's the normal small suburban town problems of opioids and addictions of various kinds, and it all comes together astoundingly. This is like a sapphic Mountain Goats song, but with all the depressing things that entails. Highly recommended read for this summer.

Although I'm not a big romance (of any sort) reader, I thought I would give this a go when Penguin reached out because I did play basketball when I was younger and I'm gay. Also, the early 2000s setting and exploration of grief compelled me. That said, I ultimately found this a bit underwhelming, especially the ending. I get that it's a basketball/sports book and I really liked the nuance around the role basketball played in Mack (and Liv's) life, but I felt like we needed less time on the court and more time developing the actual plot and relationships. Things would sometimes just happen and then we'd be onto the next scene. With the ending in mind as well, it kinda felt like a lot of build up to not much imo.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane.

This is a great tension filled story about a young female basketball hopeful, who in the midst of the grief of losing her dad, meets a girl who she is immediately infatuated with. But boyfriends, drugs, parents and stigmas all stand in the way of their relationship, regardless of how strong the desire is.

I don't know that I would call this a love story as much as a coming-of-age story. Lots of very real young-people challenges throughout, all written very well, with all of the angst and frustration that comes with being a teen. I know that I'm not the target audience for this book, but I'd definitely recommend it to the ya population, including my daughter.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
I want to start off by saying I could tell from the prologue that this book wouldn’t be for me. The writing style is one that I typically don’t enjoy. I also had a very hard time liking Mack, our main character. That being said, I pushed through hoping my opinion on both would be changed. As someone who is no stranger to hiding who they are and having difficulty managing their own expectations of themself with how the world sees them, I sympathized with Mack. From the outside, her and Liv’s relationship was toxic. Both of them refusing to say what needed to be said, in a healthy way. But what teenager is truly good with words? I feel as if there were so many loose ends that weren’t tied up for the story to truly feel complete. All of that being said, I am grateful that more WLW stories are being written and I do think that this book is written for an audience that isn’t me.

This a beautifully written book. I am not an athlete, so I loved the insight into what it feels like to be a gifted athlete--feeling dominant on the court, the pressure in all parts of life, relationships with teammates, the struggle to decide on next steps after high school. I felt the characters' pain in trying to work through their longing for women and their place in the world. This author's writing is full of emotion and desire while also being realistic. I wish that alcohol and drugs weren't such a big part of the lives of these young characters. Even though it reflects a different experience than I know/hope for, the author fleshed out the characters so that I understood their choices. With this book and "I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself," Marisa Crane is a must-read author for me. In both books, she brought me into a world that I didn't know, introduced me to interesting characters, broke my heart, and gave me hope.

Thank you to Dial Press for reaching out and offering the opportunity to read this book. They were right, it was right up my alley.
I love a good basketball story, and that this one was focused on female basketball players was a bonus. Crane wrote with authenticity, having played herself. I enjoyed the story and the developing relationship. I just wish there was more of it!

Just absolutely gorgeous. Heart-wrenching. Full of want and dread and pain and reaching, reaching, reaching. It ruined my night. It made my life. It made me feel forever. A new favorite; Mac Crane is a talent of our time.

Not quite sure what to do with this one. Really emotional writing but kind of misses for me.

It is all first person so you can't look away, at all. It starts with tremendous energy on the basketball court and off, then the middle gets really messy (but life is messy?), and the end comes out of nowhere. A small thing, but the epilogue starts with "we" for the first paragraph, so I thought it was about two people. But it seems to be a "royal we" for some sort of effect. I had to re-read the epilogue a couple of times to figure out what was going on.

Throughout, there is barely enough information to figure out what is happening with the other people. That is a side effect of the really tight first person, but it feels claustrophobic and confusing a fair amount of the time. Again, maybe life is like that?

Not your normal romance, that is for sure.

The Dial Press was kind enough to provide me with an advanced reading copy via NetGalley for an honest review.

Half way through and I’m really struggling to finish. The background about basketball is foreign for me so I find it super boring. The characters are not real likable and most are dysfunctional. So many 5 star reviews, clearly I missed the message or something just didn’t click for me.

Just finished and I’m so disappointed with this entire book. The book did get more interesting in the second half and up until this point I hung in there if for no other reason but to discover what happens at the end, only to discover there is no end. What college does she go to? Does she go? Does she play professionally? What happens to her and Liv? What was the connection with their dads? I need closure to feel satisfied with a book. Is that the point? I would have given this book 3 stars but the ending just frustrated the hell out of me.

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy of this book.