An interesting read, and I haven't quite read anything like it in the past I don't think - a trans protagonist, who's escaped a religious cult who has unleashed a genocidal virus on the world, and is now fighting alongside a band of queer resistance fighters trying to take down the religious cult.

I enjoyed the thoughtful examination of some of the religious aspects - although there are obviously very overarching negative impressions due to the cult mentality, I enjoyed Benji talking to some of the other queer people who did still have a faith, and how they marry their personal faith against the institution of the cult. There were also some deep and moving parts of Benji examining his own trauma with coming out, and how his mother especially reacted. 

Unfortunately there was also quite a lot of the book that didn't really work for me. I found that the premise wasn't explained particularly clearly; there were a lot of disparate elements, and it took a while to fully be able to piece together the Flood, and Seraph, and Graces, and how Seraph functioned, on top of what the general timeline of the post-apocalyptic events looked like. Part of this is probably me not being particularly familiar with fantasy storylines, but I read it with my partner who also shared some of my confusion.

This same thing occured again at the end of the book, with the big final battle. I honestly found myself quite confused about what exactly was happening; lots of people dying, some succumbing to the Flood, and then mix in some sort of hallucinatory/purgatory sequence as well, and I found myself quite baffled... and then all of a sudden it was over.

I also didn't find the ending particularly satisfactory; throughout the book, we are essentially told how Benji's story is going to end. And then by the end, it doesn't go there. I don't know whether we're supposed to interpret that as Benji just accepting that his fate will come 'soon', or whether for some reason he's escaped that fate... but it just left me feeling a little bewildered. 

I also felt like some of the diversity and inclusion around the ALC felt a little... shoehorned in. I'm all for a diverse range of characters, and I thought that when attention was paid to these characters (such as Benji's transition story) it worked really nicely. Unfortunately it felt like because every character at the ALC had to be queer, and seemingly all a different 'flavour' of queerness, oftentimes they were boiled down to just their identity, and it was hard for me to actually get a grip of any of the characters at all. Basically I was aware of Nick and Benji, and... that was it. I also felt like Nick's autism was a bit of a mixed bag; towards the latter half discussing his shutdowns, and his need for the lizard, it felt like a nice exploration. But early on especially, it often felt like there weren't really any autistic traits being particularly displayed, and instead several characters just had to mention several times that he was autistic just as a matter of making sure it's mentioned. I almost wonder if it would have been more effective to have not mentioned it, and then just under the high stress situations see him exhibit some of the behaviours and then at that point have Benji having a discussion with other members of the ALC about the behaviour and how Nick can react at times.

I guess I had a lot of thoughts on this!