Is anyone else feeling sentimental about girlhood right now? In the waning age of Karens, girlbosses, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, a schism has emerged between what are known as “pick-me girls,” who put down other women in a bid for male attention, and “girls’ girls,” who do the opposite. What I enjoy about the distinction is that it acknowledges class traitors — to be called a pick-me is like being called a narc.

In the queer community, however, there’s a dark side to this attitude: Some lesbians — you may have heard of the “gold star” type — look down on lesbians who married men, had children, or dated around before coming out. Some lesbians are particularly cruel to bisexual women, an identity that encompasses a spectrum of preferences and attitudes.

Jen Michalski is here to remind us that, yes, All This Can Be True: Many queer women have enjoyed romantic relationships with men, many have not, and many women carry the weight of these relationships long past the third trimester. At the heart of her new novel is a promise from mother to daughter that it’s never too late to change your mind.

As romances go, this one reads like a family drama in disguise. Both women at its heart, Lacie and Quinn, are mothers, but they couldn’t be more different: Lacie is glamorous suburban royalty to Quinn’s indie-punk princess. But at the time of their meeting, each is desperate for connection and an escape from reality, and they are unwittingly drawn together by their association with the same man. The consequences of their new relationship force them to choose between the comfort of the familiar, bleak as it may be, and a bold leap of faith.

Lacie coasts by in her cushy role as the wife of venture-capitalist Derek and mother to two adult daughters. She is profoundly lonely and has been for some time; a recovering Klonopin addict, she confides most in her NA sponsor. We meet her at a pivotal point in her life, moments before Derek’s stroke, which renders him comatose for months. She’s thinking seriously about leaving him, and not for the first time.

Between Lacie’s nouveau-riche glamour and explosive family dysfunction, I found myself picturing her as one of the “Real Housewives of New York City.” Her reminiscences of a tender connection with the mother of one of her daughter’s best friends — now long gone, fled to DC — reminded me of cast members Bethenny and Jill.

Quinn, on the other hand, struck me as a genderfluid punk creature among the ilk of Patti Smith and Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna. When we meet her, Quinn is driving to San Diego in a last-bid attempt to tie up loose ends before she leaves the U.S. for good. A surprise pregnancy over a decade ago ended her indie-rock career, and ever since her daughter passed away, she spends her days traveling by camper van with little else than a guitar and a scary-looking Glock. While her main objective in SoCal is to say goodbye to a dying friend, there’s someone else she’s going to visit: the father of her deceased child, who may have been willing to help pay off the medical bills — if only he weren’t in a coma.

It might seem bizarre that these two women would become involved, but grief is a powerful thing. More than lovers, Lucie and Quinn cling like two souls lost at sea to the same piece of driftwood. Their first meeting at the hospital registers to Lacie as a coincidence, but for Quinn, it’s a shameful collision of worlds. They rapidly come to depend on each other in an emotional affair whose pacing defies all odds. While I found myself thinking, Huh, that was fast, I was ultimately convinced by their mutual grief and sense of isolation.

This brings me to my biggest critique of the novel: When it comes to the male characters in All This Can Be True, I couldn’t find a pulse. Take Derek — Lacie’s husband and Quinn’s ex-fling — who is admittedly comatose for most of the book. His actions past and present catalyze the narrative, yet the crucial flashbacks to his role as a husband and a human being fail to resonate. What attracted Lacie to him in the first place? Why is he the way that he is? I kept waiting for something to click.

Where other characters — including Lacie’s preppy, peppy daughters — blossomed as the narrative progressed, the men never quite developed. To be fair, none of this is really about them. Not only does this book center a lesbian relationship, but its strongest threads are Lacie’s fraught relationship with her daughters and Quinn’s last moments with her oldest friend. Maybe it can also be true that that’s enough.

Madeleine de Visé is a bookseller in Baltimore, MD.