“An achingly good read, bringing moments of joy to the reader along with heartache and sorrow … full of sarcasm, name-dropping and style punctuated with a queer, feminist twist … This book comes alive for the reader and is a lovely coming-of-age story for women to reflect on and perhaps even relate to their daughters. Her poetic voice hits hard and with beauty … Bottle Rocket Hearts is a compelling story told by a writer skilled in her craft.

Anyone who is different in any way will relate … Whittall’s background as a poet shines in every paragraph. “ Bottle Rocket Hearts is about coming of age, identity, politics, the nature of love and who constitutes family.

She doesn’t indulge in long, flowy passages, but tosses out seemingly careless lines with aplomb. “The novel is a well-constructed and well-written queer urban twist on the Bildungsroman … There is no doubt that Zoe Whittall has a poet’s heart. This Toronto-based writer isn’t just witty, she gets it. Combining queercore, sexuality, and politics, Whittall licks every last ounce of icing from the sugary layer cake of first heartbreak, while savoring the potent ingredient of self-deprication. “Whittall is quicky carving out a place for queers on the esoteric bookshelves of Canadian literature … a post-riot grrl coming-of-age tale, Bottle Rocket Hearts … makes reliving the decay of adolescence bearable – enjoyable even. “Even with heavy themes of loss, Bottle Rocket Hearts is a fun romp through Montreal’s 1990s counterculture. “Zoe Whittall might just possibly be the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler … Bottle Rocket Hearts is a major statement about lessening unhappiness by overcoming the small dishonesties that creep into everyday life.

Bottle Rocket Hearts by Zoe Whittall