I read the RAVING reviews for this book, and I was so excited to read it. The premise sounded so cool—apocalyptic society where men become basically wild animals and women have to learn to survive and defend themselves, but there’s tension between TERFs and Trans women. I was here for it. But the book overall fell so short.
First of all, the characters were so flat. I felt zero attachment or care for them. Plus, I think that it would have been more powerful to show cis women who did support and protect and were allies to the trans women rather than just divide them down the middle—cis women vs trans. Secondly, the world building had a lot of holes—the communities have cars and factories and butter and electricity, but not much medicine?? Also, I kept wanting the plot to go somewhere, to do ANYTHING, and it didn’t. I finished it and felt like “…what was the point?” It was almost like the whole book was saying “Here’s what the world would be like. The end.” And lastly, I get it—dystopias are violent and gory and dark. But this book was SO violent and had so much rape. So. Much. Rape. It felt gratuitous and unnecessary and over the top. I wanted to like this book, I wanted it to be progressive and have an amazing message, but at the end of the day it fell really short and just didn’t do it for me.