4.5 stars

It took me awhile to get into the book, but once I got about 1/3-1/2 way through I read the rest in one go. I thought it ended kind of abruptly - everything from her finding out about her mom and Greta to the story's end did not take up much space - and could have used a little longer epilogue. But on the other hand it definitely left me with a feeling of hope for the character and her future without over-explaining everything, which was nice after reading about the griminess of her life with Spanner.

I did appreciate how the LGBT relationships were just there without comment or need for justification or excuse, especially in a book written back in 1995. There were quite a lot of sex scenes, which mildly annoyed me, but thankfully they didn't tend to drag on for too long and they did contribute to the story.

I enjoyed watching Lore's growth (illustrated well with the time jumps) from being a rather arrogant elite who didn't think about those her family affected at all to being lost to regaining her sense of self and starting to heal. Magyar was great too, and Spanner was certainly memorable. I kind of wish I knew more about Ruth and Ellen (how did she convince them to help with the PIDA anyway?) but enjoyed them as the supporting characters they were. Additionally, hovering over the whole book were themes of abuse and its effects, monopolies/class issues, and secrets/identities, which I thought were generally pretty well done.

The near-future sci-fi angle was fine, but honestly I'm not sure how much it really contributed to the story. It didn't detract, at least. There might also have been a little more information about wastewater treatment plants than is strictly necessary. But the characterization was excellent, and once I got into it the story itself is interesting and well-written.