ralentina reviewed Boulder by Julia Sanches
On not moving to Iceland for love
5 stars
Content warning minor spoilers
A Spanish butch leads a life of freedom as a cook for a cargo ship by the coast of Chile, until she falls in love with a corporate geologist. The geologist doesn't like their name, so she nicknames her boulder - a gesture that encapsulate what is to come. Their romance is passionate and fulfilling, until Boulder agrees to move to Iceland together. Soon she finds herself trapped in a life she doesn't want, and starts resenting her partner ('She thinks of me as a challenge and believes she can train me the way a farmer would train a wolf—it drives me up the fucking wall'). Things get progressively worse. On my personal reading notes, I recorded that reading this book felt like swearing after dropping a weight on your toes, i.e. it felt good.