Ilhem

 This is one of my favorite stories, and I'm so glad that it found  a new publisher after the closure of Loveyoudivine Alterotica. I hope that this new release will give it a larger readership. Believe me, it is deserved.

I'd hate to sound desperate, but just go read it....Please?! :D

This is a buddy re-read and a joint review with Laura and Deirdre; thanks again for the companionship, ladies!

”It is true; words are just words, but the meanings they carry, the way the world bends around them, that’s what’s complicated.”

The three of us read Filth 9 months ago and we couldn't let the revised version be released without buddy reading it and gushing about it again!

It’s 5 stars all over again, which doesn’t mean that it is perfect (what is?). It means that we love it so much that we don’t care, that we love every single word of it, that we were given characters who will stay with us for a long time, and so so much emotion!

Kel and Toni are already an established couple when the story begins. The road to the happy ending (more an HFN) is not about following a plot that will get them together, but about spending some time in their minds and sharing their journey at the rate of 2 trains of thoughts that sometimes drag and mull over, sometimes get frantic with worry, sometimes fly with pleasure and joy. It is well and truly about words. Words and how we use them to define ourselves and our perceived roles in  life. Words to think differently with,  to see underneath and farther.

The author’s voice is strong in telling Kel and Toni; it doesn’t act as a barrier though. On the contrary, the language knows how to be in turn beautiful and blunt, it shades and lights up, deepens and amplifies, provides a denseness of thoughts and a wide range of emotions that owes nothing to unbridled angst and everything to restraint and intensity.

“[...] feel like the person in the mirror was the same person who was watching the reflection. Thinking the small voice in the dark, the one that whispers “I am”, would make itself known as more than just “I”, and become something the rest of the world could see, and believe in”

It tells gender fluidity with ever-changing pronouns, tells the pain of being unable to define oneself as dictated, the gross and scary reality of living on tricks, fears, the beauty in being able to love no matter what, the courage to love despite the fears, to be oneself, to face what the world throws at you.

Filth is about gender. It has the good taste and common sense to question and study more than answering, and it is almost incidentally so, as it is defined in the end by unconditional love and courage. Just like its characters.

Filth is not a romance, but it is one hell of a love story! One to marvel at and be envious of.

“He just takes Toni as he is, and makes every little piece of him feel loved”