Sexuality and Romance

The novel explores sexuality in women in order to expand the bounds of what is and is not acceptable for women to feel and think in regards to sex and romance. Lucy is our narrator and she is open and vulnerable with the reader, as if she is speaking to a very, very close friend. As she travels through the confusing and frustrating experience of falling in love with Joshua Templeton, she allows us a look into all of her innermost thoughts and feelings.

Lucy is sexually obsessed with Joshua, but she does not dream of white wedding dresses and chivalric horses, rather, her desire for him is expressed in unfamiliar, even violent terms which defamiliarize the very notion of female sexuality and romance. One of the first fantasies that she allows us access to is one of violently choking Josh during an argument...