BookBrowse Reviews Sweetener by Marissa Higgins

BookBrowse:

An unusual story of pregnancy, relationships, and community that resists straightforward labels or explanations.

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For whatever reason, I am a sucker for a premise that involves multiple people with the same name. There is Sam Cohen's short story collection Sarahland, which features a protagonist named Sarah at the center of every story. Ed Park's An Oral History of Atlantis contains a story in which a group of women, all named Tina, study Chinese bone script on an island. Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa, forthcoming in September 2025, revolves around a nail salon where all of the technicians are called Susan.

So I will admit that I was first intrigued by Sweetener because two of its three main characters are named Rebecca. The Rebeccas are a newly separated but still married queer couple; presumably they also have the same last name. This is just one detail that makes the book difficult to explain or discuss in a rational way. One of the Rebeccas is a cashier at a high-end grocery store and a first-person narrator of half the book's chapters. The other Rebecca is a newly sober grad student, whose motivations and backstory remain somewhat opaque. The chapters not narrated by cashier Rebecca present the perspective of Charlotte, who at the time she is introduced is in a relationship of sorts with grad student Rebecca. They met on a dating app for queer women where users can choose to be a "seeker" or "provider" depending on whether they are looking for a date they can lavish with money and gifts, or whether they are hoping to be lavished themselves. Charlotte has been grad student Rebecca's provider.

But cashier Rebecca is on the app too. And one day, because she wants to "feel powerful," she switches her profile from "seeker" to "provider." Shortly thereafter she receives a message from Charlotte, who, unbeknownst to her, has already started stalking cashier Rebecca at her place of employment. Soon enough, Charlotte is clandestinely dating both Rebeccas. Meanwhile, grad student Rebecca has decided she wants to foster a child, and has asked her soon-to-be ex-wife to be present for interviews, classes, and other administrative exercises required of those who wish to parent someone else's child.

Money—and the relative ease in life that it affords—is a central fixation in the novel. The Rebeccas both work low-paying jobs; Charlotte is a claymation artist who comes from money and, to her credit, likes to spread it around. But her largesse comes with strings: it is clear she feels entitled to a certain amount of attention from the Rebeccas when she busts in on their meeting with an adoption counselor pretending to have just been assaulted. The reader may feel inclined to write her off as a narcissist but she is also sympathetic. A great deal of her time and energy is spent creating the optimal environment for her best friend Olivia, who struggles with anorexia, to eat on a regular basis. Deeply insecure and unconventional to say the least, Charlotte frequently wears a fake baby bump under her clothes, and it is not clear to what degree this is a sexual fetish and to what degree she simply thrives on the attention she receives in public when she's perceived as a pregnant woman.

Much of the tension in Sweetener is centered on the gradual reveal of trauma from the characters' pasts. The most intense of these reveals involve memories of the steady deterioration of the Rebeccas' marriage as grad student Rebecca's drinking escalated out of control. These scenes are very real and often very uncomfortable to read. The author's decision to approach their complicated relationship sideways—through each woman's interactions with Charlotte, and through flashbacks and gradually revealed details—is innovative. By the end of the novel, the reader is invested in this relationship and may be hoping to see the Rebeccas reunite, but the actual ending is rather more complicated, unexpected, and strange than the resolution of a will-they-won't-they, and it will likely be polarizing with readers. While the story coalesces, there is something empty or not quite fully formed about Sweetener. The characters are compelling but I never felt like I completely understood them, and the ending throws this impenetrability into sharp relief.

In a sense, the book ends with everyone getting what they want, albeit not remotely the way they planned, if there was a plan at all. Sweetener reminded me of a recent favorite, All Fours by Miranda July, in that it is also centered on female desire of a non-traditional nature, both books are very funny, and both involve something of an unorthodox triad relationship that flouts the conventions of monogamy and hetero/homonormativity (and conventions of polyamory, for that matter). Though the focus is in some ways on romantic relationships, Sweetener is really about community—how we show up and meet each other's needs because we can, and we want to, not because the strictures of a relationship dictate that we must. It's an odd but charming story of kindness and care.

This review first ran in the August 27, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.