Saturn Returning centres around three friends (Trace, Silvia, and Jordan) who we follow in two timelines, past and present.
In the past, we see how they first meet at college, how Jordan begins to come out of her shell and explores her sexuality; how Trace is a sucker for girls and falls hard when she falls in love; and how Silvia has a whole host of feelings bubbling under the surface that she’s reluctant to share, even as she grows closer to her friends (Jordan) and lovers (Trace).
In the present, Trace breaks off her engagement with Silvia. She’s in love with another woman. Things spiral from there. These present-day snippets are interspersed between the history between the three as they graduate, get jobs and travel across the world. Their individual relationships grow as they do, becoming infinitely more complex.
I found Saturn Returning to be really well written. I love reading queer literary fiction like this where we explore people just living their lives, making mistakes and patching things back up again. I found the alternating POVs to be different enough that I didn’t feel as though I was reading about the same person three separate times, which is always a bonus. Knowing from the beginning that Trace and Silvia were on the rocks, and that Jordan was unwillingly at the centre of it all, it was easy to keep on reading and see how they got to where they were, to be excited about what was to come.
I definitely recommend this one if you’re interested in queer lit fic, mildly messy relationship drama, and questions about what it means to drift apart and come back to one another.
