She writes a series of brutally honest letters to friends and family, and because she'll be dead by the time she reads them, she also tells her deepest secret: She's a lesbian.

As the society around her seeks to excoriate her for her sexual identity and those close to her are afraid to be painted with the same incriminating brush, only her father, brother, eccentric aunt, assistant and closest friend Billy stick by her.

[1] The Kirkus review found an excess of platitudes in the text, but also that Brown's "sexual frankness and flippant humor are as refreshing as always.

"[2] Chicago Tribune's Patrick T. Reardon found the novel "uneven", and "a real mess of a book, albeit a usually amiable and often amusing one," noting that Venus Envy is more a polemic than a novel: "a series of set pieces in which characters—read Brown—speechify about deep and important things."

The fault she finds is that Brown pulls "too many strings", and that some of the dialogue gets "didactic" and gives her "permission" to "relax and stop worrying that we won’t get the message.