Despite my edition's somewhat misleading tagline (380 realities; 8 chances to survive) this is not an interactive chooseable-path book, but an ordinary novel. But: it is a good novel! I'm most stricken by the strong voice and the tone of it: dark and gritty, with distinct Mad Max vibes: pretty much a (gritty) action film in book form. (This is not to say that it'd work better in videographic form; it does use the medium of prose effectively.) The protagonist is relatable in an irreverent sort of way - I'm somewhat reminded of Murderbot - and, again, has a good, strong voice.

And for all that dark-and-grittiness, it is in some ways surprisingly gentle and hopeful, which a) seems like quite a feat to pull off and b) makes it a comforting read inside a not-very-comforting (sub)genre, which is, well, neat.

A thing I especially liked was the way it dealt with sex work: a nuanced and wholesome depiction. A thing I was less sure of was the way it dealt with religion. There's not a whole lot of detail gone into as far as religious worldbuilding goes, but the impression I got was that in this future, all religion is kind of thrown onto the same pile - not even in a "morphed together into one big superreligion" sort of way, but in a "people of this subculture are super pious but the details of that are up to them" sort of way. Which is an interesting approach, for sure, but not one I find particularly convincing.

Selling points: astute social commentary in a fun actiony wrapper; gritty setting and cynical protagonist but with a hopeful core; queer rep, including a bi/pan narrator

Warnings: domestic violence, abusive power dynamic in the context of employment, class disparities + classism (by characters, not the narrative).