Damn. This book was intense and hard and important. A near-set dystopian future in which Americans are chipped and undocumented immigrants are hunted by the government. 

I struggled with how to rate this book. I didn't hate it. But it's very clearly dated, a relic of another time that does not hold up particularly well. As a Buffett Bookcase staple, I felt obliged to give it a shot - the story of a white man who buys a hotel on a whim in the Caribbean and gets his ass handed to him in his white superiority nonsense is, in fact, an important story. But the dated racial and homophobic language was gross, and the story dragged at times. It took me a while to chew through, in starts and stops, but it wasn't all bad. But it wasn't a top read of 2023 either. 

Wow. This is a beautiful, heart-wrenching story of love and loss and grief, of a family falling apart and coming together in the wake of tragedy. 

This is a decent story - and a good exploration of themes of power dynamics and sexual assault. The magical world is a thin veneer over the real world, but it provides a backdrop for the story. It allows exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality dynamics in high school, and between children and adults. It was fun to read, but I'd have loved to see more magic world fleshing out - or setting the whole story in the "real world."