At the time, she told US Weekly, "I loved the idea of how all these guys always are stealing other guys' girls and I was like, 'There's no female anthem for a girl stealing another guy's girl,' so she went ahead and made one. The single's visuals brought a story to that idea, following suburban teen friends Coley and Sonya as they realize they have deeper feelings for each other, despite the fact that the latter has a boyfriend."
It might sound like a potentially familiar narrative: a queer coming-of-age story, charted across one single heat-crazed summer in the 70s. From its very first paragraphs, however, this debut novel feels different. Madeleine Dunnigan immediately takes us inside the head of her rather scary protagonist, and makes his adventures in teenage lust and self-awareness as involving as they are immediate. The writing is constantly surprising, as unafraid of sensuality as it is of the story's repeated eruptions of brutality.