If there is one book that I regret not getting my review pushed out as soon as I finished it to tell everyone about it, it is this one! Seriously, this book has stuck with me and I’ve thought of it off and on since I read it. And even when I read it, it was a year later than I should have because the publisher reached out in July of 2023!* OMG I didn’t even realize that which is a shock to me—I guess 2022-2024 were even more blurred than I thought.
This isn’t as hauntingly powerful as Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go or Murakami’s 1Q84, but it could hold its own. Interesting those are both also author’s of Asian descent, as is Hannah Michell. Michell has the British connection also to Ishiguro, but that is tangential to this review and this probably says more about me than it does those three authors.
The recommendation for this book arrived from the publisher way back in April and me being me assumed I’d have PLENTY of time to read it before it was published.* But then I didn’t read it early, we got a puppy and I started school, so yeah needless to say it took me a lot longer to read than expected.
When I saw this on NetGalley I knew I was going to request it.* I remember the news stories of Bailar joining the Harvard University swim team and being the first trans athlete to compete on any NCAA D1 Men’s team and when I saw he wrote this I knew I wanted to read it.
It’s so nice I read it twice—no, seriously. I finished it and then the next morning decided I wanted to read it again. That’s twice this year (excluding illustrated/graphic novels)! The other double read this year was 
I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this one. I’m always open for a bit of Austen fan-fiction so when someone from the publisher reached out to me about this one I figured why not?*