A/S/L

Thornton (Summer Fun) chronicles three queer friends’ search for meaning and identity in this ambitious and playful novel. In 1998, high schoolers Lilith, Sash, and Abraxa collaborate online to build and test a video game called Saga of the Sorceress. They possess varying levels of talent and focus but maintain friendly, trans-inclusive banter in their gamer chat room, as when Sash defends Abraxa against a transphobic interloper. Though they don’t finish the game and go their separate ways after high school, they reunite and meet IRL for the first time in 2016 New York City. Lilith, a trans woman, holds a joyless bank job, Sash works as a webcam dom, and Abraxa has begun reviving the Sorceress video game in a New Jersey church basement. As Thornton chronicles the characters’ sex lives, relationships, and gender transitions, she explores their deep-seated longings and regrets. Though the narrative meanders, the determinedly upbeat tone carries the reader along, as do the novel’s dynamic stylistic elements, such as old-school online chat threads and low-bit illustrations of the game. Readers will rally around this feel-good tale of trans friendship. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Apr.)