Gabriel Tallent’s second novel, Crux, feels as if it’s trying to squeeze every possible metaphor out of every possible climbing term, and, like his hyper-loquacious protagonist Tamma, it’s a lot to take—at first. But you settle in, or maybe buckle up, as high desert kids Tamma and best buddy Dan try to send Fingerbang Princess—a sketchy, highball boulder problem—and classic routes in nearby Joshua Tree. They have no money, no rope, no crashpad; what they do have are broken families and the belief that climbing is their only way out. Queer, swear-like-a-sailor Tamma lives in a trailer and has few options, Dan has more but doesn’t seem to care. Their journey together looks like a desperate dyno move to a wafer-thin hold—low odds of success, high degree of danger—but by the end, the metaphor works.