A gentle book with the rude title “Bastards!” is surely going to become a kind friend to everyone who reads it. Or rather, a friend—because it was written by a woman, about women, and for women. But it is by no means a specific feminist work, and not a love opus either. It’s an astonishingly delicate book about everyday life—about the days when love hides in plain sight.
The young and talented writer Ariel Byuto, with sympathy, compassion, and irony, reveals the secrets of the private lives of three inseparable girlfriends. Karolina loves diving headfirst into reckless romances and is a little crazy about the scary-looking furniture from IKEA. Florans is charming and young, but she’s already divorced. Elisa is a model wife and mother—until her long-delayed passion arrives. In any case, late love pursues all three, and the girlfriends can’t help wanting to say that rude word—printed in the title—to the objects of their passions. All that remains is to decipher the strange male soul and fit into the crossword of their life a word that fits into six squares and is marked as “doomed to live in the dark.” You thought it was the blind men? How wrong you are—it’s the bastards!