I understand the importance of satire, and for the most part, I enjoy it as a method of elucidating things that need skewering in culture. But this novel—where a young white man is convinced he’s a Black man in the wrong body—didn’t quite hit the mark. The book doesn’t quite make the satire biting enough, and there are long passages where the plot feels almost too earnest rather than satirical. It is gorgeously well-written, but by the end, I didn’t feel like the absurdity of the premise had paid off.