What a reprehensible little family. Noemi Toboada <3 i luv u <3 I wish you'd never met them.

Very interesting concept, surprisingly thoughtfully feminist and intersectional. Underneath the

mind-controlling, life-extending, consciousness-transferring mushrooms

is a story about the use and abuse of female, non-white, and poor bodies at the hands of a colonial power and men who never hear or internalize the word "no." Is it ground-breaking or particularly deep? No. But I was glad that

the people who mattered (Catalina and Noemi) made it out alive and triumphant and that Agnes was freed. I also appreciated that, at the end of the day, Catalina and Noemi saved themselves/each other, instead of being saved by a man.

Also, learned a new word: lugubrious = adj. looking or sounding sad and dismal. It played in my head on a loop for three days after I read it. Very fun word to say, one might even say too fun to mean "sad".

Weakest part of the book for me was the romance between Francis and Noemi

, wish they just ended as friends. Though I guess the novel itself tells us that we never know what the future has in store for them, so they may very well breakup

.