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This book is a god damn marvel of a mixtape. A fervent, generous compilation of love songs brought together so the whole is even more meaningful than its parts. Dancyger elevates friendship to its proper station, naming the loves of her life and storytelling about the riches, comforts, and insights those relationships have offered her and her beloveds. First Love is poignant, ferociously smart, and unflinchingly honest—it will empower readers to name the many loves of their lives.
— CJ Hauser, bestselling author of The Crane Wife
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This book is a goddamn marvel of a mixtape—a fervent, generous compilation of love songs brought together so the whole is even more meaningful than its parts. Dancyger elevates friendship to its proper station, naming the loves of her life and storytelling about the riches, comforts, and insights those relationships have offered her and her beloveds. First Love is poignant, ferociously smart, and unflinchingly honest.
— CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife
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What if our first and deepest female friendships were the real love stories? Lilly Dancyger’s First Love inhabits the space between young women before their bodies, identities, ideas and dreams get sucked into the social void of commodity and objectification. Like capturing a photograph just before it is taken, in these stories female friendships are their own ontology, a magical space of being where anything is possible. A dazzling array of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of Thrust
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What if our first and deepest female friendships were the real love stories? Lilly Dancyger’s First Love inhabits the space between young women before their bodies, identities, ideas, and dreams get sucked into the social void of commodity and objectification. Like the moment just before capturing a photograph, female friendships in these stories are their own ontology, a magical space of being where anything is possible. It’s a dazzling array of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of Thrus
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First Love is a feminist, fresh look at friendship: how the deep love of other women can keep us alive, thinking, and reaching for our best selves. Lilly Dancyger pulls from her own life to create raw, beautiful, and haunting essays.
— Alisson Wood, author of Being Lolita
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What if our first and deepest female friendships were the real love stories? Lilly Dancyger’s First Love inhabits the space between young women before their bodies, identities, ideas, and dreams get sucked into the social void of commodity and objectification. Like the moment just before capturing a photograph, female friendships in these stories are their own ontology, a magical space of being where anything is possible. It’s a dazzling array of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of Thrus
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The complicated alchemy of intense female friendship drives so much of our culture, but for many of us—even the people shaped by it—its workings remain something of a mystery. I can't think of a better person to gently unlock the secrets of friendship than Lilly Dancyger.
— Jess Zimmerman, author of Women and Other Monsters
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Lilly Dancyger writes about women's interior lives with the kind of attention and care the world is sorely lacking. I'm so excited for First Love, a book about one of the most central parts of any coming of age story—the solace, love and grief to be found between best friends.
— Jude Ellison S. Doyle, author of Trainwreck and Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
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First Love is a feminist-fresh look at friendship: how the deep love of other women can keep us alive, thinking, and reaching for our best selves. Lilly Dancyger pulls from her own life to create raw, beautiful, and haunting essays.
— Alisson Wood, author of Being Lolita
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Reading Lilly Dancyger’s First Love, I felt immediately returned to first loves of my own—late-night phone calls and sardine-sleeping-bag sleepovers, falling asleep to the sound a friend’s voice saying, Are you still awake? Dancyger understands the urgency and entanglement of these early intimacies—the chrysalis and consolation of these bonds—but also the ways we are reborn into friendship across the course of our lives. Her prose is tender and true, fiercely felt and finely etched; her insights precise and ever-peeling, pulling back layers of feeling to get at the additional layers underneath. From buzzed youth to domestic routines, from fire-escape marathons to the confessional booths of late-night taxi back seats, she writes into the deepest reaches of love and invites us to feel witnessed and rearranged by what she finds.
— Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams and Make It Scream, Make It Burn
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The complicated alchemy of intense female friendship drives so much of our culture, but for many of us—even the people shaped by it—its workings remain something of a mystery. I can’t think of a better person to gently unlock the secrets of friendship than Lilly Dancyger.
— Jess Zimmerman, author of Women and Other Monsters
-
Lilly Dancyger writes about women’s interior lives with the kind of attention and care that the world is sorely lacking. I’m so excited for First Love, a book about one of the most central parts of any coming-of-age story—the solace, love, and grief to be found between best friends.
— Jude Ellison S. Doyle, author of Trainwreck and Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
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Reading Lilly Dancyger’s First Love, I felt immediately returned to first loves of my own—late-night phone calls and sardine-sleeping-bag sleepovers, falling asleep to the sound a friend’s voice saying, Are you still awake? Dancyger understands the urgency and entanglement of these early intimacies—the chrysalis and consolation of these bonds—but also the ways we are reborn into friendship across the course of our lives.
— Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams and Make It Scream, Make It Burn
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Like the moment just before capturing a photograph, female friendships in these stories are their own ontology, a magical space of being where anything is possible. . . . a dazzling array of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of Thrus
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First Love is tender, intricate, and smart. These layered essays sparkle with intelligence and intimacy. I felt held by this book.
— Joy Sullivan, author of Instructions for Traveling West
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First Love is bracing in its honesty and verve, and is as heady and intoxicating as the relationships it details. It gripped me in a tight embrace on page one and still has not let me go.
— Chloé Cooper Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Easy Beauty
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First Love is bracing in its honesty and verve, and is as heady and intoxicating as the relationships it details. It gripped me in a tight embrace on page one and still has not let me go.
— Chloé Cooper Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Easy Beauty
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This book is a goddamn marvel of a mixtape—a fervent, generous compilation of love songs brought together so that the whole is even more meaningful than its parts. First Love is poignant, ferociously smart, and unflinchingly honest.
— CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife
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What if our first and deepest female friendships were the real love stories? Lilly Dancyger holds open the possibility that female friendships are their own ontology, an extended flash, a magical space of being where anything is possible. It’s a dazzling array of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water
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A soul-stirring compilation of essays about how our earliest intimacies—sisterly, friendly—so often resemble the intensity of romance, how the delineations between different kinds of relationships can blur, how if and when those relationships change or end it can feel like the most devastating heartbreak.
— Electric Literature
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We’re on a path to understanding friendship in a new light, and I know I’m only grateful to witness the carving of that path, thanks to people like Lilly Dancyger.
— Literary Hub
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Reading Lilly Dancyger’s First Love, I felt immediately returned to first loves of my own—late-night phone calls and sardine-sleeping-bag sleepovers, falling asleep to the sound a friend’s voice saying, Are you still awake? Dancyger understands the urgency and entanglement of these early intimacies . . .
— Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams and Make It Scream, Make It Burn
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First Love is tender, intricate, and smart. These layered essays sparkle with intelligence and intimacy. I felt held by this book.
— Joy Sullivan, author of Instructions for Traveling West
-
Lilly Dancyger holds open the possibility that female friendships are their own ontology, an extended flash, a magical space of being where anything is possible. It’s a dazzling array of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water
-
First Love is a feminist, fresh look at friendship: how the deep love of other women can keep us alive, thinking, and reaching for our best selves.
— Alisson Wood, author of Being Lolita
-
A soul-stirring compilation of essays about how our earliest intimacies—sisterly, friendly—so often resemble the intensity of romance . . . how if and when those relationships change or end it can feel like the most devastating heartbreak.
— Electric Literature
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First Love is like a Paper Fortune Teller as essay collection, but for looking into Dancyger’s past instead of her future. A heartbreaking, funny, wise companion.
— Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
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First Love is like a paper fortune teller as essay collection, but for looking into Dancyger’s past instead of her future. . . . A heartbreaking, funny, wise companion.
— Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
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I can’t think of a better person to gently unlock the secrets of friendship than Lilly Dancyger.
— Jess Zimmerman, author of Women and Other Monsters
-
Lilly Dancyger writes about women’s interior lives with the kind of attention and care that the world is sorely lacking.
— Jude Ellison S. Doyle, author of Trainwreck and Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
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In these essays, love is inextricably bound with pain, a duality the author renders with a lyrical and affecting rawness. Cathartic and intense, this leaves a mark.
— Publishers Weekly
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“First Love is like a paper fortune teller as essay collection, but for looking intoDancyger’s past instead of her future. Her life folds and refolds in each of these essays,revealing more as she goes in unexpected flashes, and she makes it look easy as shedoes it. . . . A heartbreaking, funny, wise companion.
— Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
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What if our first and deepest female friendships were the real love stories? LillyDancyger holds open the possibility that female friendships are their own ontology,an extended flash, a magical space of being where anything is possible. It’s a dazzlingarray of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water
-
First Love is bracing in its honesty and verve, and is as heady and intoxicating as therelationships it details. It’s an astonishing work, one that made me laugh and cry andfeel grateful and nostalgic for my own friendships across the eras of my life.
— Chloé Cooper Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Easy Beauty
-
This book is a goddamn marvel of a mixtape—a fervent, generous compilation oflove songs brought together so that the whole is even more meaningful than its parts.First Love is poignant, ferociously smart, and unflinchingly honest.
— CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife
-
Reading Lilly Dancyger’s First Love, I felt immediately returned to first loves of my own—late-night phone calls and sardine-sleeping-bag sleepovers, falling asleep to the sound a friend’s voice saying, Are you still awake? Dancyger understands the urgency and entanglement of these early intimacies . . .
— Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams
-
We’re on a path to understanding friendship in a new light, and I know I’m onlygrateful to witness the carving of that path, thanks to people like Lilly Dancyger.
— Literary Hub
-
In these essays, love is inextricably bound with pain, a duality the author renders witha lyrical and affecting rawness. Cathartic and intense, this leaves a mark.
— Publishers Weekly
-
“First Love is like a paper fortune teller as essay collection, but for looking into Dancyger’s past instead of her future. Her life folds and refolds in each of these essays, revealing more as she goes in unexpected flashes, and she makes it look easy as she does it. . . . A heartbreaking, funny, wise companion.
— Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
-
What if our first and deepest female friendships were the real love stories? Lilly Dancyger holds open the possibility that female friendships are their own ontology, an extended flash, a magical space of being where anything is possible. It’s a dazzling array of essays.
— Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water
-
First Love is bracing in its honesty and verve, and is as heady and intoxicating as the relationships it details. It’s an astonishing work, one that made me laugh and cry and feel grateful and nostalgic for my own friendships across the eras of my life.
— Chloé Cooper Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Easy Beauty
-
This book is a goddamn marvel of a mixtape—a fervent, generous compilation of love songs brought together so that the whole is even more meaningful than its parts. First Love is poignant, ferociously smart, and unflinchingly honest.
— CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife
-
Reading Lilly Dancyger’s First Love, I felt immediately returned to first loves of my own—late night phone calls and sardine-sleeping-bag sleepovers, falling asleep to the sound a friend’s voice saying, Are you still awake? Dancyger understands the urgency and entanglement of these early intimacies . . .
— Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams
-
We’re on a path to understanding friendship in a new light, and I know I’m only grateful to witness the carving of that path, thanks to people like Lilly Dancyger.
— Literary Hub
-
Reading Lilly Dancyger’s First Love, I felt immediately returned to first loves of my own—late night phone calls and sardine-sleeping-bag sleepovers, falling asleep to the sound a friend’s voice saying, Are you still awake? Dancyger understands the urgency and entanglement of these early intimacies.
— Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams