I'm on the fence about how much I liked this. I'm not a big fan of first person voice, but I didn't mind it here as I enjoyed the 'old-fashioned' style of Ada delving into self-discovery and the sisterhood she finds. I mostly enjoyed the gender-non-conformity of the Holl in the Wall's leader The Kid since they had the most distinct presence excluding Ada. But she and many supporting characters were also written too similarly to tell them apart. From beginning to end, there was a pang of wanting a grander scope of the world-building and where the plot was going. As a book set with an alternative history, I also wished it had gone the opposite route than sectioning off white characters VS everyone else, or only recognizing gay and lesbians from the LGBTQ+ community. The plot felt like it was touching on feminist themes, but not quite sure how to go all the way with intersectional ones.

Westerns with a feminist-edge are becoming an emerging genre, and this was a fine entry with an alternative twist. Even with ever-extending library due-dates, I wasn't exactly racing to finish it. I mostly enjoyed the atmosphere of the book (if that makes sense lol) and would love to see it as a TV series. I'm also low-key loving the amount of reviewers who wanted a different book that didn't focus on social justice...when the mere summary heavily themes women's reproductive issues. Talk about expectations vs reality.

I'd recommend to read it if you enjoy True Grit mixed with Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

Put Keanu Reeves on anything, and I'm there. His name attached to the project piqued my interest first (as well as seeing that one of the pages took inspiration from the sad Keanu meme). Everything about the comic fits his action star persona to a tee, basically taking John Wick and turning him into an ancient barbarian trying to remember who he is in the present day. The illustrations are extraordinarily detailed, however, most of the story either depicts countless dismemberment and follows the footsteps of characterization we've seen before (think of the opening to Wolverine: Origins, honestly, in comic form.) As a first volume, I just felt like I've seen it before, and all of the violence even on the page made me more numb than intrigued. If the second volume happen to come along at the library or something, I might check it out. But, this was a little too short and unexciting to make me want to seek it out on my own.

Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan has meticulously planned out her five-year plan. After accepting her boyfriend's proposal, she envisions herself in a different apartment engaged to another man five years in the future. When she wakes up, she files the experience in the back of her mind...until she meets the man from her long-ago vision and must figure out how to deter the destiny she didn't plan for.

I really commend Rebecca Serle for the amount of twists she packs into this story. For one, I thought the story would be more sci-fi than drama. That's more on me than her, but still - every couple of chapters, I assumed to know where the story was heading only for the plot to shift gears. She manages to avoid sweeping the rug out from me as a reader that's too jarring, but keep the story going that made me connect with the characters and relationships. That said, I was interested in how Dannie would navigate this vision that could steer her life into another direction but didn't felt like the dots all were connected.

A big hurdle is how the story skips ahead to the date when her vision takes place

Spoiler

and meeting the mystery man she's feared to catch up with - her best friend's boyfriend / fiancee. Serle decides to avoid the love triangle or affair trope, and settles for Dannie's best friend Bella discovering a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Another twist. Where you think the man is the object of the story, Serle aims for Dannie's friendship to take front and center, using Dannie's impending loss to come to terms that nothing in life is really in anyone's control. Though I found myself wrapped up in Dannie and Bella's heartening and heartbreaking friendship, Dannie's methodical approach to life begins to feel way to passive and more of a quirky detail than anything more substantial. As the old saying goes, "Life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans", the story ends up not really intending for Dannie to use her knowledge of the future to steer her life in a specific direction - but just let it all play out and see where it leads. Her agency to change things that are no longer serving her is supposed to sparked by a tragic subplot, but I felt it was more of a diluted bystander or by-product more than anything else. By the end, that initial premonition that's supposed to spark the whole chain of events doesn't quite add up to a fulfilling full circle moment.

"Vulnerability is often the first step on the path towards justice. Vulnerability breeds empathy. Empathy fosters support. Support leads to action."

Coming out is already be an intimidating experience for many, but to do it again and again on a national stage in the hopes to change one's community takes unfathomable courage. Sarah McBride never set out to make history. But as a political activist who happens to be transgender, she became the first openly transwoman to work at the White House under the Obama Administration, to legislate LGBTQ+ inclusivity bills in Delaware, and became the first openly transgender state senator.
In her memoir "Tomorrow Will Be Different," she shares the hurdles she's faced throughout her political career, coming out, and losing her husband to cancer just days after they were married. The politically-focused aspect isn't as engaging as I hoped it would be, but it's necessary to read in order to truly understand how bills currently going on in Texas, the Don't Say Gay Bill in Florida, and transphobia takes hold. Despite the challenges she faces, McBride is also open about the privileges she also has, addresses issues in what it means to be "pass" as a transwoman based on her looks, and reiterating how important intersectional activism is. She lays out the political scope of the LGBTQ+ community and her personal experiences with vulnerability and honesty that really paints a deep portrait of the importance of treating transgender individuals with dignity and respect, and what happens when we have ignorant people in power. This is a definite inspiring must-read.