A non-linear polyphonic novel with really fantastic speculative qualities. While some of it is set in present day, the assumption of what is happening now—such as with climate effects—masterfully slots in current day issues that some readers would consider topical and debatable in such a way as to be foregone conclusions, as an effortless form of world building, even as it signals the inherent political times and nature of the narrators.

Riot baby is a great novel. This is transcendent. It’s complex and dense with allusions and metaphor; steeped in marginalized culture and the rendering of the future is so vivid because of the ways in which the marginalized perceive the world. And yet it’s also not always dire. Unwilling to shed unnecessary blood from the characters that have things that give them life, propelling them into their deeds. It is critical of the intrusions into those lives at a much more comprehensively systemic way than Riot Baby too.

Every element of craft has improved. I loved the dialogue and the prose work, and how it doesn’t hold the readers hand at all. The audiobook was fantastic and was literally polyphonic, with a full cast. I already want to get a physical copy and re read it. There is cyberization in the future and community spaces and quandaries that kept me completely hooked throughout. I can’t imagine it not being one of my favourite books of the year. What a southpaw sidewinder of a book.