What We Left Behind by Robin Talley - review

‘The book presents sexuality in a way that isn’t weird, it isn’t taboo, it’s just life’

In a neat little package which proved surprisingly difficult to open was a book; a proof copy, specifically. I knew it was on it’s way and I was madly excited for it to arrive. Perhaps that’s why it was difficult to open. I opened it up and I laughed at the press release which had a quote from the review I wrote for this author’s previous book, for this site in fact, which had a little post-it note underneath pointing up to the quote saying, “It’s you!” Regardless of that, the really nicely designed cover greeted me to the sight that was What We Left Behind by Robin Talley, who is by the way, a phenomenal author, and I suppose I’m about to fangirl a lot about why. Oh well!

Toni and Gretchen are inseparable. Completely inseparable. They met at the high school dance, and they have a future mapped out with each other. Toni’s going to Harvard, Gretchen’s following her to a school in Boston and they’re going to live their life together as a completely normal lesbian couple. That’s what Toni thinks anyway. Gretchen applied to NYU and got waitlisted for it. She didn’t tell Toni, but she got in. One of them is going to Boston, the other’s going to New York. But how hard could it be?

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