The Split, by Laura Kay

Another purchase from Gay’s the Word bookshop in London. My best friend and I were fighting over who got to read this one first. I won.

Ally goes through a nasty breakup with her long-term girlfriend, Emily, and in a fit of despair and heartbreak, flees London with her ex’s cat in tow, back to her dad's home in Sheffield. She hasn’t spent any considerable time there since she was a teenager, and it’s a depressing spiral when she takes stock of her life as it stands.

The universe does crazy stuff, though. Somehow her old beard from her teenage years, Jeremy is also back home after a brutal breakup. In a desperate attempt to prove themselves to their exes, they sign up for a half-marathon. Neither of them has run a yard in their adult lives. It’s just a question of if this new experience will, in the least, not kill them; or at the best, turn them into perfect versions of themselves that their exes can’t bare to live without. Hmm…

This book is hilarious. The second hand-embarrassment was shocking and had me writhing in agony at times. They are tragic, useless, and painfully flawed. But they are us. Just regular people. There's no visage of perfection here! Jeremy is foolish and idealistic to his detriment; Ally is shut off and doom-tastic. A fabulous combo.

What’s really striking about this book is its insight into adult relationships. Specifically, adult relationships that began pre-adulthood. How fatal flaws are invisible until you’re seeing them from the outside; and the habits you'd built to make space for your relationship and your partner. It’s so cringey and uncomfortable, but it’s very grounding to know that these are shared emotions and experiences. This story holds no embellishment or romanticism for what it feels like to live through a significant breakup, and the struggle of becoming a first person singular again, after being plural for so long. Ally gets it so wrong in handling the breakup, and Emily doesn’t do much better. It's a bit of a bleak look into the lengths that humans might go when they’re crazy in love. But in a funny way!

A classic queer romcom – the gays would go wild for a film adaptation of this! There's enough personal growth and depth to keep me from rolling my eyes, and enough light-hearted tomfoolery to keep me from crying. A quick and breezy read that I’d recommend to any holiday reader!

- Sian