Autonomy

Overall, I enjoyed and appreciated this book. In some ways, it reminded me of The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel, which you could also describe as focused on a woman's brief, fascinating, and ultimately untenable foray into the “country of money” and all of the protections (and hypocrisies) that come with it.

Given that, I feel the blurb wasn't a great representation, so it took me a while to start to feel oriented - I struggled to follow along with what was happening or to feel really invested in the book for the first third or so.

There was some really gorgeous writing; there were a few phrases and sentences that really struck me (I loved “wine wicked away my guilt at overshooting survival all the way up to this strange, stratospheric new world” and “some women see a gilded cage and think, it's still a cage; some women see a gilded cage and think, it's still gilded”).

However, it took me much longer than usual to finish this book, both because of the mismatch between my expectations and what it was actually about and because its topic and content just hits SO close to home right now. I know the author wrote this a while ago, but it almost felt like doomscrolling the news at times (which is far more a commentary on our current state of affairs than anything she could have done differently).

This was 3.5 stars for me, rounded to 4. Thanks to Dundurn Press and Rare Machines for my ARC.

The best light I can view this book in is by considering the author was processing many of the worst aspects of the last few years. The ongoing threats to reproductive rights, the pandemic, the misogyny inherent in society, emphasized by the election of Trump. There's something of The Handmaid's Tale here, controlling women, prioritizing their fertility. The narrative more suggests than directly addresses how trans men might be negatively affected by such a dystopia, and extends the metaphor of control into the idea of an AI who is never truly free, never considered a worthwhile being in themselves, always measured as less than human rather than allowed to be their own type of self, even as they love, try to connect. Tangled up in there somewhere is the recognition of women often valued foremost for looking young, and that anxiety about losing youth and accepted appearance of beauty further emphasizes the fear of death that trying to survive a pandemic increases. 
And of course, classism, economic disparity, the way the privileged are shielded from a crisis, how their actions might exacerbate conditions for those who are not sheltered, similar to the disproportionate hazards for frontline workers during quarantine.  
It all fits solidly into highly topical social commentary, but it also feels somewhat scattered and rushed. Top marks for intensifying feelings of anxiety, but I'm not sure it said anything I haven't felt or heard already in the past four to eight years. It was published in 2022. Maybe it's just a timing thing. My reading it now vs when it just came out? Maybe I'm less appreciative of works that outline the problems when society still seems to be in the throws of not finding solutions or fighting to see sensible solutions implemented. A bit more hope, please, for us and the robots. 

⚠️inferred SA and murder of a woman