In this queer literary romance, childhood friendship blossoms into heartfelt one-sided yearning which then evolves into something more.

“The heartache and longing of witnessing a beloved character pine hopelessly over her best friend has never brought me this much unadulterated joy.”—Sonora Reyes, author of the National Book Award finalist The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School

For the past five years, Mitra Esfahani has known two constants: her best friend Bea Ortega and The Book—a dog-eared notebook in which she and Bea have been exchanging poems since they were thirteen.

The rules of The Book are simple: No lies, no secrets, and no punctuation. This is a never-ending poem, as epic and everlasting as their friendship. Nothing is too messy or too complex for The Book—not Mitra’s convoluted feelings about her absent mother, or Bea’s heartache over her most recent breakup.

Nothing except the one thing with the power to change their entire friendship: the fact that Mitra is helplessly in love with Bea.