The complex, flawed characters and their fraught relationships with one another shine in Alice Sadie Celine by Sarah Blakley-Cartwright (Red Riding Hood). The three titular women immediately draw readers into their exquisitely messy lives.
The inciting premise kicks off with the natural tension a horror flick would envy, boldly written and not for the socially squeamish. Alice performs in a small Shakespearean production, but her best friend, Sadie, fails to attend; instead, she sends her mother, Celine, in her place. Celine becomes entranced with Alice's performance, realizing that her daughter's childhood best friend has grown into an alluring young woman.
The writing is gorgeous and avoids tipping into pretension. The characters are complicated and visceral. The ways in which the shifting perspectives illuminate each character in turn are truly transcendent, exploring the way each woman sees herself and how that differs from the distinct perceptions of the other two women. Celine comes alive on the page as confident, fiery, and even selfish, but from her own perspective readers glean moments of vulnerability and unfiltered love. "To Celine, Sadie was a person, never a child.... She knew, deep down, that Sadie was smarter than she was, born with essential seeds of intelligence one could neither earn nor buy. She would always remember when mop-headed Sadie broke away from her in a women's restroom.... 'I'm not a girl... And I'm not a boy. I'm a borl.' Celine had laughed and said that was a made-up word. Sadie had looked up with her brilliant, young eyes. 'Every word is made up at first.' "
Come for the arresting social transgression. Stay for the emotional complexity. --Carol Caley, writer