I really wanted to like this one!!! I didn’t dislike it per se, but it wasn’t as exciting for me as I’d hoped. The premise was dope: a trans man in Victorian England who is an artist and a bicyclist, and a widowed feminist botanist who becomes a bicyclist bc of a bet. They cycle England together and fall in love, while proving chauvinist men wrong. So many good discussions of gender, patriarchy, race, and colonialism. Heck, there are even some good talks about panic attacks and rabies! Lots of topics covered, but not too many that it got overwhelming. 

I’m not sure if there is a specific main reason I didn’t like it, but I often found my attention drifting during the audiobook. This whole book is set around this 10-day bicycle race competition which had a lot of mishaps/adventures along the way, and supposedly a high stakes ending. The competition was so built up throughout, and yet at the end of the race it was like “well that’s over, let’s immediately move on without clearly discussing the ramifications and how everything played out.” I was startled by how quickly that wrapped up. This lack of explanation happened often, especially with scene transitions, which was especially challenging to follow via audiobook bc sometimes a lot of time has passed or it’s in a fully different location but they author didn’t indicate that so I am startled by it. I think a physical book would’ve been a much better format for this one. 

So all that to say, this was fine but I was underwhelmed.