The opening is exhilarating and immersive, explaining things in a way that makes sense for this character and this world. I felt thrown into the story with a lot of context to pick up quickly and it works really well. Unfortunately I just can't handle reading a book right now which has an epidemic as a central feature, especially not one that has vastly different effects along class divides. Hopefully I'll circle back for this one in a year or two, I just can't right now. 

 This kept infodumping, telling me how I should feel about something in a kind of irksome way. I don’t mind infodumps of information, but the barrage of info and how I should process felt like I wasn’t being trusted to figure anything out. There was a particular scene right before I stopped reading where a character narrates this whole initial meeting, change of heart, and now strong ties between herself and a person she’s telling us about who’s asleep in the next room. It’s the kind of backstory that either needs its own novella or just two sentences to say where they are now, because the choice to do this in-between thing felt like I was being told about some other story I could have been reading instead. I constantly felt like I had both too much and not enough information about what was happening, and I decided to stop. 

 This was recommended to me based on being about cannibal nuns, but I didn't realize how much pregnancy and dread of pregnancy would feature in it. 

I almost stopped 25% in, made it halfway then realized I’m not engaged and don’t care what happens next. It has all these pieces I normally like (the appearance of mysterious magic loner mentor helped me get to the halfway mark), but I just don’t understand why the main character is sticking around for the upcoming fight to the death with her sister. I can guess at a justification, but so far the book has provided excellent reasons for her to get out of there and none for going through with it other than that it’s expected. 

I read this a long time ago and forgot that the asides by the narrator are randomly sexist in a way that doesn’t contribute to the narrative and unpleasantly distracts from the main story.

I wasn't liking it much and then I got to the bit with the former classmate and I got really frustrated so I stopped. I didn't like the combination of how long it took for the main character to get what was going on, plus how little the people with actual answers were willing to tell her. I don't know whether I would have liked this as a kid or not, but it's definitely not for me now.

I've previously loved some of this author's other books but just didn't get pulled into this one. It starts out with a lot of the tension centering around interpersonal dynamics of Lily's friend group, and I got as far as the beginning of the deportation plotline, but it's about 50/50 whether I'll like a non-thriller YA book with no magic, and this falls in the "no" pile for me. If you like sapphic historical YA about older teens finding love, give this a try.

Tried to get out of my comfort zone a bit and this was too far. No issue with the book itself, it’s just not what I’m looking for.

I don't like the main character and I vehemently disagree with her choices early in the book. At this point I can't help feeling like she brought this mess on herself and it makes it hard for me to sympathize with her. Since that's not a great feeling for me, I'm stopping. I can tell from the description that part of the point is that this is a mess and a lot of it is her fault, but this just isn't the book for me. 

 I think what turned me off of this book is I was initially very stoked for Vivian's covert exit from her life, the intrigue of managing anonymity after being so famous. Emotionally I was all set for something that felt like a heist and then the book abruptly transforms into something else. I was fully absorbed into the first set of rules and then just couldn't make the pivot into the galaxy-hopping ragtag band story.