Akiva Reads

by Kim Westwood

Overall, the plot built slowly and satisfyingly, though it ended in a rush.

Dystopian, but not 100% depressing - there's an entrenched underworld that offers safety and community, and some of the environmental regs implemented by the fascist government, I was like "man, I wish." Uncomfortably prescient of COVID in some ways, though at least we didn't have mass slaughter of wild birds. The fertility/hormone issues are exactly what paranoid antivaxxers think the vax is currently doing, but with no evidence. I was surprised in a bad way by Sal saying that Albee "had a sex change at 21," but transition technology gets a more detail and less stupid later in the book.

I learned a lot of Australian slang. The main characters are mostly all white and the book doesn't go into racism at all, just homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny.