Love Me Back

In this shocking debut novel by Tierce, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award recipient and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, Maria is a smart but self-destructive young woman working as a waitress at a high-end Dallas steakhouse who attempts to lose herself in the sex- and drug-filled world of the service industry. She has encounters with many men—customers, coworkers, and occasionally her husband—while endlessly degrading herself. Tierce jumps fearlessly into the surreal world that is Maria's life, taking the reader along on a terrifying ride. Unfortunately, though Tierce is a gifted writer who has made Maria's emotional damage obvious, it's difficult to feel sympathy for Maria or the other equally unlikable characters and nearly impossible to care about what finally happens to her. Though the novel is full of astute observations of the human psyche, the lack of emotional connection between the reader and the main character (something Judith Rossner managed to achieve in Looking for Mr. Goodbar) makes the explicit sex scenes feel gratuitous and obscene.