Book Bites: The Three Lives of Cate Kay

The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Three Lives of Cate Kay starts strong and then fizzles. Set up as a memoir told by different characters, the book centers on childhood friends Annie and Amanda as they navigate first loves and first lives. The book drips with sapphic yearning. But wider than that, Fagan absolutely nails desperate teenage longing; the urgent, competing desires to not say too much but say everything. It's when the book shifts away from Amanda and Annie that the narrative falters. There is an accident and a best-selling novel and agents and movie stars and lovers and exactly none of it is as compelling as Annie and Amanda. There is also a question of agency; the plot moves around Annie and Amanda rather than because of Annie and Amanda. There are chapters centered on secondary characters that do nothing to move plot or deepen themes. And this is very nit-picky, yes, but there are *so many* ridiculously hot lesbians you'd think this was a teenage boy's fever dream. Cate Kay is a perfectly fine bit of bookclub literature, commendable for centering queer and lesbian stories, but short on execution.

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