This book was the best book I’ve read in a really long time. I can’t stop talking about it. I think everyone should read it and I really hope it gets the attention it deserves.

Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez is a dystopian novel of a near future where Canada is wracked by climate change and massive flooding in urban centres, leading to increased homelessness and poverty and the Canadian government embracing fascist regimes to “solve” the emerging problems.

The Canadian government pilots “The Renovation”, which forcibly relocates visible minorities, queer people, and disabled people into labour camps in Toronto.

The novel follows a group of queer resistance fighters trying to survive and expose the genocidal labour camps to the international community. It is a disturbing, moving, realistic, horrifying, and a terrifyingly plausible novel. 

The queer characters in the novel are so complex and vibrant and determined to live as their full selves. 

There are so many conversation and reflection points the novel sparked in me. Hernandez dives unapologetically dives into performative allyship and the white saviour complex, and the cost of ineffective allyship. The scenes involving the white characters coming to terms with their position in the regime is going to stick with me. 

Hernandez’ has created a harrowing glimpse into a world that seems so possible as fascism continues to gain currency in Canada.

This book needs to be included in curriculum and conversations. It shows the beauty and importance of queer, racialized and disabled kinship. It illustrates a too-close-for-comfort result and dangers of circulating fascism and white supremacy.

Book 7 of 2021.
5.0/5.0