Re-read (first read was in 2018). This book holds up to the 5 stars I gave it originally. This time I listened to the audiobook, which is FABULOUSLY narrated - seriously I went and looked up every book Adjoa Andoh has narrated and was pleased to find there are lots.

Dystopian, sci-fi, very dark - please go into it checking all content warnings. Basically take all the horrible things that we humans have done and put them in one book, but with a gender role reversal. Then as you read this, think about all these horrible things that are happening, what those with the power do to those without, remember that these are all things that HAVE been done throughout history to marginalized people in THIS world. The one that we live in. The insane thing is that I almost hesitate to call this sci-fi because it's basically our real history. Yeah, it's disturbing.

I thought about this book long after I read it the first time, and will continue to do so probably forever.

I originally read this book in 2019. Back then I rated it 5 stars, which I feel was very rare for me as I was reading a lot less, but I wonder if seeds of this book planted itself into my subconscious.

Re-reading now in 2023 after going through a global pandemic, and quitting my shitty office job - I have a new perspective on life in general. It's rather eerie to read a book written before 2020 that got so many things right. I applaud Ling Ma who likely did a lot of research to make things so realistic. This book definitely reads more literary than sci-fi, although it is a dystopian setting (although I'd say about half the book is pre-pandemic reflecting that happens throughout the story). It is really a critique of our capitalist consumeristic society intertwined with the first generation immigrant millennial experience. I've read a few reviews where people say they don't like the main character Candice, but I would challenge people to question what it is they don't like about her. Because I would propose that perhaps the things they don't like about her (her stubbornness to continue going into work despite the absurd conditions) are perhaps things that they don't like about themselves. I truly don't think I would have gotten that perspective out of this book on my first read, so I am glad I re-read it.

**I recommend doing this one on audio or a combination of the audio + ebook/physical - because all the dialogue is written in that obnoxious way where there are no quotation marks. However, the narrator does a great job inflecting when people are talking, so that made it much easier to read.