I hope to someday write a more eloquent & more thoughtful review, but here are my preliminary thoughts:

Set in dystopian Canada, we follow a queer femme drag performer who is Jamaican Filipino. Massive floods brought upon by environmental degradation left the majority of the population homeless, jobless, and starving. And some powerful white man seizes the opportunity to herald an oppressive regime where "Others" (i.e. marginalized groups) are sent to labor camps in the service of "True Canadians."

While this book dauntlessly takes on the oppression faced by many marginalized groups (e.g. POC and Indigenous, Muslims, queers, people with disabilities), there is definitely a heavy concentration on race, and specifically, Blackness. And I'll admit that I felt uncomfortable about the intense exploration of Blackness when the author is a non-Black person of color. I truly, wholeheartedly believe that this is outside of her lane and that the author should have written a main character who is more reflective of her identity.

At the same time, however, I don't want to completely dismiss the merits of this book. I *do* think that Crosshairs is a good book and that the story it tells is timely, important, and above all, frightening because of the many parallels between this dystopian society and the world we currently live in. Considering the state of politics in my own country and in many countries around the world, it isn't too hard to imagine a world where labor camps are reintroduced, people below the poverty line are killed without much thought, and people of color suffer the brunt of the discrimination.

Here are the things that I liked about this book: