I wanted to like this book more than I did. It seemed like a totally lesbian version of Detransition, Baby, but I just couldn't find myself getting into it. I was completely baffled by just about every character's actions, especially Charlotte. And the Rebeccas. So, yeah, every character. I feel like I'm missing something, but the characters are too messy for me, and my brain simply couldn't comprehend two characters having the same name even though that was objectively very funny. I just didn't get it.

Thank you to NetGalley the publisher for the eARC! This book will be released in the US on August 19th, 2025.

What a strange little book. Sweetener is slippery—hard to describe, harder to sit with, and deliberately impossible to categorize. I’m not sure I liked it, but I also can’t stop thinking about it–much like Higgins’s debut.

Rebecca—grocery store clerk, broke, tender, half-erased by her alcoholic wife (also named Rebecca)—finds herself pulled into a slow spiral of queer codependence and emotional misrecognition. She joins a sugar dating site to fill the ache of her separation and ends up connecting with Charlotte, an eccentric artist who wears a fake pregnancy belly at all times, even during sex. Charlotte is, notably, the sugar mama of Rebecca’s wife. And no, they don’t know.

What unfolds is a strange, stuttering narrative of trauma, longing, and identity collapse. Rebecca can’t quite escape the violence of her past—foster care, sexual assault, neglect—or the dangers of loving women who claim to see her but can’t make space for her pain. Her wife wants to foster a child. Charlotte wants to possess her. Rebecca just wants to make it through a day without dissociating or falling apart.

Marissa Higgins’s prose is sparse and rhythmic, like cracked glass—full of jagged edges and fragmented reflections. The novel’s world feels off-kilter and dreamlike, but that dissociation mirrors the characters themselves: women undone by love, shaped by survival, and terrified of the ways that care can become control.

Sweetener doesn’t offer neat resolutions. I’m not sure it offers any. But if you’re interested in literary fiction that’s emotionally raw, resonant, and completely uninterested in being palatable—this might be for you. It’s weird. It’s discomfiting. It’s not “fun.” But it’s doing something honest in its mess.

📖 Read this if you love: fragmented queer narratives, trauma-informed storytelling, and messy women navigating love, loss, and longing.

🔑 Key Themes: Trauma and Memory, Queer Intimacy and Codependence, Economic Precarity and Survival, Foster Care and Chosen Family, Addiction and Control.

Content / Trigger Warnings: Sexual Content (severe), Alcoholism (moderate), Eating Disorder (minor), Drug Use (minor), Alcohol (minor), Child Abuse (moderate), Sexual Assault (moderate), Suicidal Thoughts (minor), Forced Institutionalization (minor), Physical Violence (minor).

I really wanted to connect with Sweetener, but unfortunately, this one just didn’t work for me. As a lesbian reader, I’m always on the lookout for stories that reflect queer relationships with care and nuance, but the dynamics in this collection felt unsettling more than anything else. The portrayal of wlw relationships lacked the kind of emotional depth or authenticity I was hoping for, and at times even felt reductive.

Beyond the content itself, the writing style made it even harder to stay engaged. There's a heavy focus on communication between characters, but with the absence of proper punctuation and grammar, it became increasingly difficult to tell what was dialogue versus internal monologue. That kind of structural choice can work in some literary fiction, but here it just muddied the emotional clarity of already-complicated interactions

I can appreciate what the book might have been aiming for in tone and experimentation, but the execution left me feeling very disappointed

This is classic messy lesbians and that ending was absolutely perfect. Were there times when I got confused about which Rebecca we were talking about? Obviously.

1.5 ⭐️. Respectfully, I have no idea what happened....nor do I really care.

thank you to Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press and NetGalley for the advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review

SWEETENER has cemented it - Marissa Higgins is an incredible writer with a singular voice. Her follow-up to the incredible A GOOD HAPPY GIRL is unsurprisingly a perfect companion. Weird, wonderful, complicated women navigating relationships and family and held together expertly within Higgins' writing.

SWEETENER is about mothers. Firstly, and surprisingly, sugar mamas. And fake mothers. And wannabe mothers, and how we are mothers to each other. Charlotte is a rich, bored artist who as a pregnancy fetish and is a sugar mama to Rebecca. Rebecca's ex-wife, also named Rebecca, meets Charlotte separately (coincidence? Not really) and they both have a unique relationship with Charlotte, and also her friend Olivia.

This quick plot description doesn't quite do it justice though. SWEETENER is a vibe. It's surreal, and silly, and deep all at the same time. No one else is doing it like Marissa Higgins right now, and I feel so honored to be an early reader. Get this on your TBR right now!