Holding

Marie Devers
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:45:55 PDT

'Holding' is the first-person account of a young woman coming to terms with her father's illness, her cousin's death, and her family's dysfunction. The novel explores the developing need of the narrator to understand a sexual relationship she shared with her cousin. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator romanticizes this relationship, but as she confronts layers of disillusionment-denial, self-destruction, codependence-her perception transforms into a more realistic view of the past. The narrator uses pop songs as a metaphor for her idealized definition of love. To her, love is an absolute, a perfect bond. Over the course of the novel, she comes to a more mature definition of love. In the end accepting and admitting that what she perceived as love was actually abuse doesn't erase her problems, but proves the first step in the process of recovery.