I really wanted to like this because a teenage girl who is an awesome lady animal tracker! And lesbians! And unicorns! Except the world building is terrible, the “love” story is instalove, the “mystery” was barely one, and everything wrapped up way too tidily. Meh.

Speculative fiction western! Queer antifascist librarians! I loved this and I wanted MORE: more worldbuilding (how did the future end up like the old west?), more character development, more of the librarians actually distributing Unapproved Materials.

I’d say it’s more like 3.5 stars, really. The writing is stunning, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read, which is both good and bad. Good in that it moved me and it’s a story that hasn’t been told before, and bad in that I was expecting more of a cohesive plot.

TW: rape, emotional abuse, and Stockholm Syndrome.

I’m going to need more time to process this, but my initial feeling is: it wasn’t at all what I expected, the art is lovely, and the story is problematic. It’s fucking hard to exist as a woman in the world, and Beatrice gives her sleazy boss George a lesson in just how terrible it is. The problem is that she rapes and emotionally abuses him after turning him into a woman, and then time passes and...they’re in love. So yeah, I have some complicated feelings about this.

This book left my heart aching in the best possible way. It’s not a long novel, but there’s *so much* in it, both in the sense of feeling, as well as the fact that it looks at race and class, sexuality, family, and more.

Something that other reviewers seemed to either love or hate is that the chapters are each memories from different characters, and you don’t know which one until you figure it out from the story being told. I happened to love that, but I can see how it’s not for everyone. For me, it felt like being brought into the folks, hearing intimate stories and memories.

I’m excited to read more of Woodson’s beautiful writing.