Another YA dystopian trauma-porn book for me, I'm afraid. I appreciate where it went, in the long run, but it definitely hurt more than I'd usually like to get there.

Generally I found Zhao's writing a bit clumsy - and I definitely became irked by the constant use of "guys" and "girls" and "boys". I dunno. I get that it's about teenagers, but there are a few "man" dropped here and there but I'm pretty sure the word "woman" doesn't actually appear in this novel anywhere.

Despite it all, the themes around internalized sexism were quite good, but overall a bit heavy-handed I think.