Bryan Washington

A Novel

Family Meal

Lindsay

I think when you’ve been in one place long enough, it starts to feel like that’s the whole world, you know? Seeing anything beyond it is hard. Like, it doesn’t even feel possible? And I think a part of me has been fighting to keep things that way in my life. Uncomplicated and easy. Which I guess is a kind of safety.

But that safety’s not real, I say. And you lose so much trying to keep it.

I’m saying that I want to stop being safe, I say. And I don’t know what that looks like. But I think it’s okay that I don’t know.

I want you to do the things that you want to do, I say, but it has to be for you. Not because you feel like it’s something you should do.

Sometimes, says Emi, we think we’re doing the right thing because we’re told it’s the right thing. Or because it’s for someone that we care about. Or it’s for someone who’s cared for us. But it isn’t the thing that we need. Sometimes it even hurts us.

Emi takes a long sip from her beer. She stares at me like I should respond. Maybe we can only do what we can, I say. And we try to hurt as few people as possible.

There’s no way not to hurt anyone, says Emi. Even if you really try. You’ll only end up burning yourself.

Sure, I say. But I think it’s still worth trying.

There are bigger things to apologize for, I say. It’s hardly global warming.

Some people set the key of their lives inside you and simply turn.

My family taught me the difference between acceptance, allowance, and understanding. Also: just being. Sometimes they overlap. Usually, they don’t.

Why would I? Romance with qualifications is just a crush.

I meant to ask Kai what he’d seen in me. What love looked like to him. It was a stupid fucking question and I never got around to it.

Eva Ströberg

Family Meal - Bryan Washington
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⭐️⭐️⭐️
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This book is very melancholic. It tells the story of Cam, TJ, and Kai, all entangled into one. All gays, all from different background and different interests, yet their lives intertwined as one
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The book is heavy with sex scenes, and sadness, if I can put it that way, there’s even disclaimer and warning in the beginning of the book, yet I feel like the book can be rather meh most of the time, apart from few special moments described that make you feel like you’re having lucid dreams.
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I don’t know how lives are like for queer people, and I don’t claim to know, but reading the story envokes deep feelings and profound sadness, and this book definitely changed the state of my mind and mood as I read through it, just like a stream of sad songs can alter your mood. Anyway, read at own risk

Hannah

I wanted to love it but honestly not quite a hit

Family Meal A Novel

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