I’m not sure how to feel about this book. It is really well written, the characters feel unique and have depth. I was drawn into it.

Aster’s character is expertly written, as are Theo, Mesuline, and Giselle. The mystery around Aster’s mom is really layered and interesting to uncover. I really loved Aster’s perspective and I loved getting glimpses of the other characters’ points of view (I wish we could have spent more time with these other characters, though!).

It is hard to read- the main characters experience a lot of abuse and their trauma makes them do and think things that feel gross. I think that there is a lot of value to stories about abuse and trauma and I think it is well done.

This book also talks very directly about race and class hierarchy- the way this is fleshed out didn’t quite work for me. I think there wasn’t enough groundwork laid for why their society was the way it was- it really just took American slavery and put it in a (literal) vacuum, which is interesting in itself, I just felt like much more could have been done and there was a lot of nuance that was missing for me and/or didn’t make sense to me. That being said, there are a lot of really powerful and visceral moments and we are given a compelling depth of history for the characters.

There are multiple unresolved arcs- Theo’s gender identity, Mesuline’s relationship to the events at the end of the book, and then- what happens to this society, anyways? I was really interested in seeing where everything was going- a lot of these arcs ended up feeling underdeveloped.

The resolution was unsatisfying. In that, there wasn’t much of one? I was on board for a lot of the book, and in the end, I just didn’t know what the point was. The end left a bitter taste in my mouth that had me wondering to what end any of the actions in the book were for, afterall. (But not in a devastating 1984 way, in a I don’t know what the author is trying to say here way.)