A lot of good stuff, but a lot of untapped potential.

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This book had so many parts that I loved and parts that should have made me ecstatic to keep on reading, but I am only giving this book three stars for one very large reason.

This book has too many moving pieces, and there were too many unanswered questions at the end that left me utterly confused. Without giving too many spoilers, the main conflict is introduced in the first few pages but it isn't really given any weight until maybe 200 pages into the book - and considering the book is 340 pages... I either wanted the first whole chunk to be shortened considerably or for the book to be longer/a series. Another thing that just didn't really sit well with me was the two main narrators we were following. I loved Beth's story and I loved Tess's story but in my opinion, they didn't really come together in a satisfying way that made Beth's story necessary.

Also, the one question I really wanted to be answered - "where did the machines come from?" - was never answered. This also leads to my final critique for the book; a lot of things were good concepts but never really fleshed out. Not just large concepts but transitions between scenes weren't fleshed out which lead to characters going from Chicago to New York in the span of a paragraph.

However, I did love the goddess aspect brought in towards the end and the character who is introduced 200 pages in even if I thought they could be expanded upon far more. And, I loved the feminist aspect of this book, especially as someone who is currently in college majoring in gender studies. And the LGBTQIA+ rep was absolutely amazing.

So, perhaps this wasn't the best book I've read all year, but it was a very fun one for my gay, feminist self.