Pulsing with dazzling and unexpected observations on selfhood, grief, and art-making, Mudflowers is an exhilarating meditation on the boundlessness of desire and the relentless possibility of youth.
Cassidy McFadzean, poet and author of Drolleries
Mudflowers is a gorgeous depiction of the tender, painful stretching required to love well and expansively, to recast our ideas of romance and family. There is something almost psychedelic in how vividly Waterman renders Sophie’s inner world, her grief and her confusion and her fervent searching. I loved this funny, wise, moving book.
Aimee Wall, author of We, Jane
An ode to those who have lost and found their way in the big, irresistible, and labyrinthine smoke that is Toronto, Mudflowers weaves together a motley of contradictions, a remarkable patience with the steep learning curves of one’s late twenties, and a surefooted commandeering of a moment foregone. Waterman’s Sophie persuades the stumbling newcomer to keep stumbling in this graceful novel devoted to weirdo zeal and the perennial gifts of family.
Cody Caetano, author of Half-Bads in White Regalia
Aley Waterman is a writer who is awake and attentive to the weathers of the heart. Mudflowers is subtly activated by grief and the ways that losing a parent can build a world anew.
Claire Foster, literary translator and bookseller
Waterman's debut novel has dark moments, but there is levity, too. Sophie’s humor is reminiscent of the protagonist's in Elif Batuman’s The Idiot as is her constant stream of philosophical questions and analysis, her musings on love, big feelings, and death.
Booklist
Thought-provoking, expansive, and raw ... Aley Waterman's sensitive first novel, Mudflowers, follows a young woman exploring intimacy, biological and built families, and art.
Shelf Awareness
Waterman's debut is a really cogent depiction of grief, intimacies of all sorts, and the complexities of human connection. This book is intimate and true and heartfelt and moving. And it's written in sincerely beautiful prose. A wonderful book of learning how to love differently and anew.
Mira, bookseller, A Room of One's Own
Waterman examines the boundaries of trilateral relationships with an observant and honest facility. Written in casual-sounding but philosophically minded prose, the book’s insights are most powerful when linked to Sophie’s states of emotional resignation.
Toronto Star