this is a book meant to be worked with, digested over time— not just read for the information in it. casting my own archetypal wheel and seeing my life through it has been powerfully clarifying. I expect to work with this chart for years to come.

I could not stop reading once I began. It was so easy to get attached to the main character, Whit. 

The main reason for my rating is that the novel often read less like a story that was unfolding in real time, and more like a list of political certainties. While I 100% agree with all those certainties, I wanted to experience Whit reaching them rather than her rattling them off as if they were self-evident and obvious. I wanted to see Whit growing into her own truth.

The novel begins with a dedication to survivors who shatter the "perfect victim" trope, but it ends up becoming another kind of a perfect survivor: someone who has no self-doubt, no shadows in her sense of self. Even when Whit messes up, she is not really messed up. So: I could not grow into this story with her.