Bellies is a coming of age novel that explores where a love story goes when its protagonists change and when one person in the relationship transitions, as well as the difficulty of people finding who they are after university. Tom and Ming meet at a drag night at university and are drawn together, with Ming a playwright and Tom not quite sure what he's doing, recently out as a gay man after breaking up with his girlfriend when they both came out. When Tom and Ming move to London after leaving university, Ming announces that she is transitioning. The novel follows the pair of them as they navigate what happens next and try to work out what they mean in each other's life.

This is a tender book that at its heart focuses on the time after graduating university and how people look for the lives they want. The chapters are told from Tom and Ming's points of view, and this dual perspective is vital for the narrative, allowing you to see into both of their lives and understand how vulnerability (as the title refers to) can be precious, but also leave people feeling exposed. You also see more into their respective experiences, both Ming with OCD and with being trans and having grown up in Malaysia, and Tom's ways of navigating what he seems to see as things happening to him and a sense of loneliness. There's a great cast of supporting characters, with a web of messy friendships at the core of the book that both explore the trials and tribulations of holding down friendships as you leave university and also difficult modes of queer friendship.

I found myself deeply drawn into the story and wasn't sure how the book could end considering that it is only the start of their lives, but actually the hopeful ending worked well for me, offering up something transformational and satisfying that felt like a good conclusion to a coming of age novel. Bellies offers something that feels fresh after all the novels about straight white people trying to find themselves after university: a messy yet tender experience in which people make mistakes and try to find what is vital to their lives, but without a sense of certainty or necessarily models to follow.