WE WERE RESTLESS THINGS

Turbulent teens flirt and fight in a Midwest town.

Sixteen-year-old Jonas Lake reluctantly relocates from his mom’s house in the Twin Cities to small-town Shivery, Minnesota, to live with his dad, his dad’s girlfriend, and her daughter, the oh-so-artistic, often angry Noemi. Jonas first fights with, then falls for Manic Pixie Dream Girl Noemi; florid, fevered, forbidden romance, not always reciprocated, ensues. Noemi’s aloofness and self-alienation read as being in part due to grief as she mourns the death of friend-but-not-boyfriend Link, whose drowning death on dry forest land mystified everyone but her. Meanwhile, another romance blooms between Noemi’s female friends Lyle and Amberlyn. An abused and abusive bully and mysterious, ghostly texts complicate the quartet’s relationships, but despite their self-absorption and overly articulate narration, Jonas and Noemi remain frustratingly opaque. Noemi is a melancholic, moody artiste, often aloof and alienated, as is the broody Jonas. Identifying as asexual and working through the entanglement of romance with sexuality, Noemi offers one perspective for a population often underrepresented in literature. Debut author Nagamatsu’s fantasy elements of a spooky forest and its disappearing lake are tantalizing but underdeveloped while the meandering, sluggish pacing pairs with an insubstantial plot to deliver an overlong yet flimsy tale of teenage self-exploration. Clunky analogies and Bulwer-Lytton–worthy phrasing also abound. All main characters read as white.

Thin on enchantment, long on angst, an atmospheric but amorphous coming-of-age.