This book was REALLY GOOD. Like. That thought hit me in a wave about halfway through, and then again at the end. The beginning might feel a bit slow to some, but I loved the time and care taken to let us get to know our characters so we could root for them when things began to spiral into horror. 

Speaking of character--I ADORE the character work in this novel. Erin was definitely my favorite. She was so sweet and strong and gentle and kind while also still having very realistic and understandable flaws. She felt so real, and I was very invested in her journey. While Max frustrated and annoyed me a lot, I never got too fed up that I quit on him. And then when the end came barreling around, I was fully a Max fan. I have trouble with unresolved ed character conflict, so that probably made it harder for me to really like him at points, but I never stopped rooting for him. I also love how each character shows us a different experience of being trans. We get a lot of surface-level Max stories in media when people bother to acknowledge trans lives, but Max's took it deeper and showed the nuance and grief of living through that. And then Erin's especially--she just felt so human and real, and it was messy but so good for that.

I also loved that this story (mild spoiler)

has a happy ending

. I DNFed a horror collection because they were all too damn depressing, and I wanted horror that had some

triumph in it as well

. And this novel carries through on that! I felt nervous but hopeful the whole way through, and I loved how long we got at the end to see things resolved and wrapped up. Overall it was super satisfying. 

My only caveat (aside from how they could have sped up the beginning juuust a smidge) is how the word "fat" was used twice to describe someone we were supposed to view as gross and creepy. It jarred me each time. I'm not sure what other descriptive word could have been used, and also wonder if we could just not do the "fat=gross" man trope, sigh. It just felt cheap and easy and cliche (though I will admit
It to being very sensitive to this language as a fat person myself). But that's a rather small qualm, and the book's overall themes and heart made those word choices easy to move the past and still love the book.