There’s not a whole lot I can say about this book, objectively it was an interesting read but it was not one that I enjoyed. Nothing spectacular, and I do feel like there were parts that needed to be fleshed out more or better and in some areas it just kind of fell flat. I wish I could give it 2.5 stars instead as that is how I would truthfully rate it but no half stars allowed here. I did receive this book through NetGalley as an eARC and have decided to leave this review after much deliberation on exactly what to put in said review.

"Why concquer the universe when your own heart is empty?"

Lilith feels like a response to and subversion of a common type of American science fiction that fetishizes East Asian culture. The novel distorts, satirizes, and mythologizes the American cultural landscape, as the hyperrealism of "DizzyLand", with the grotesque rodent-man representative of the future of genetic manipulation, provides the main setting. After the collapse of society as we know it, humanity has accomplished complex genetic engineering, pitting a futuristic Asian HIVE and an "Amirkhan" empire against each other, locked in a race to secure global domination. In a colorful and electric whirlwind of a plot, the protagonist Lilith, a HIVE sex- and killerbot bred from sea slug genes, bands together with other inhabitants in the DizzyLand park in a brutal fight for survival and the future of life in the solar system.

The world's lore was genuinely interesting, but the worldbuilding - straightforward infodumping in the form of a glossary - missed the mark for me, as it was difficult to keep all of the information relayed in mind while reading. I kept having to go back to remind myself of the meaning of certain terms. It also felt like some of the details were irrelevant to the plot (the Eldritch and the Fallen Angels were barely acknowledged after the aforementioned infodump). Additionally, the insta-love trope prevented me from getting invested in the romance. If the book had been longer (my ebook version is under 200 pages), maybe these issues could have been fixed. I definitely wouldn't have minded staying in this world longer to see the plot develop more gracefully.

TW for: sexual coercion, mutilation, Elon Musk (sorry, I mean Emon Luxk).
As mentioned above, Lilith is a sexbot and is engineered to use her body to extract genetic material (cough cough) from male targets. These circumstances lead to dubious consent, violence during sexual acts, and the use of sex for ulterior motives.


Thank you to Netgalley for providing a digital copy of this book for review consideration.

Lilith by Wine Lo Borgias is a dark and provocative exploration of power, identity, and rebellion. This gothic tale weaves mythology and modernity, following the enigmatic Lilith as she challenges societal norms and reclaims her narrative. Borgias’ writing is lush and poetic, filled with vivid imagery and thought-provoking themes that linger long after reading. Equal parts haunting and empowering, Lilith is a compelling read for those who enjoy stories steeped in mysticism and feminist undertones.

I picked this up because of the cool cover and the author's bio. It's such a fascinating, fever dream of a story with all the elements I love in a work of spec-fic. It has a hallucinogenic meta narrative, it's dark, profound, frenetic, cyberpunk and brutally satirical. That said, I wish this was being handled by a bigger publishing house with a MUCH better editor, because the pacing and character development is kind of clunky. Very curious to see what the author does next hopefully with better resources.

So damn weird and that's everything I need! I love this book. It's new thinking and well written. Give me more books to read, please dear author! Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the chance to read this book.

This story follows a Zek (a genetically engineered non-human being) who is send by the HIVE (a totalitarian Asia that holds the secrets to bioengineering) to Amirkha (a dystopian USA that has separated even more along class lines than ever before) to sleep with an influential man, steal his sperm and kill him. Her mission should be simple, but then things go wrong. She finds herself unable to return to her base, but instead ends up stranded in Dizzy-Land, where she finds community with a group of women, who have survived as princess-prostitutes.
This is an interesting dystopian sci-fi apocalypse and definitely works better if you are able to immerse yourself into a strange experience and accept that many new words and concepts will play a role in the story. Since I enjoy sci-fi like that, I really liked this story. There’s also a glossary in the beginning, which really helped when I got confused while reading. I also quite enjoyed the world-building and learning about this new post-apocalyptic world and the few humans that managed to survive it.
It is dark and fast-paced and while there are some moments of relative calm, there is never really any moment where our MC Lilith really gets to feel at peace. She begins the story knowing she has to fulfil her mission or the cyanide in her system will be released and that pressure never really lets up for her. This means that everything has to move pretty fast and that threat to her life always hangs over her. It certainly does not make for a relaxed read, but to me personally it was something I enjoyed.
This also is a very dark read. It deals with the fetishisation that women, particularly trans and asian women, face by powerful and rich men and how rarely they are able to actually rebel against it. It deals with that absolute powerlessness and the various ways women deal with it (by accepting it, by stepping on other women to get ahead, by rebelling against it, by burning it all down). This conflict and especially Lilith‘s own experiences with it and reactions to it are really very interesting.
Lilith herself was also a really interesting character! She was created to be an Assassin, with the ability to steal rich men’s sperm, but unable to get pregnant, fetishised for her bio-engineered status, but also dehumanised for it. Her finding of community and love with other women is both incredibly sweet and yet also fraught with tension, due to her having to hide her Zek-Identity.
If you like dark sci-fi, women rebelling against the system that tries to keep them powerless, murdering annoying rich tech-bros, dealing with some of our current societal issues, but worse (mainly the fetishisation and disposability of certain women), some delicious gore and transfem pregnancy and you don‘t mind having to immerse yourself in new sci-fi terms to experience a story, please check this one out! If there‘s a sequel planned, I will certainly read it!
While I did enjoy the framing device of the teenage girl, who had a psychotic break, after taking LSD in DisneyLand, I do wish that part of the story had been explored further (also the Eldritch Creatures rising from the depths. What‘s that about? I need a sequel!). I also found it a bit weird that all the rich tech-bros where „a bit Aspergy“. While I do think that was dealt with fine in the end, it is something that confused me a bit.
 
Tw: sexual assault, rape, forced impregnation, prostitution, murder, violence, fetishisation/objectification, drugs, slurs

idk if i was high reading this or if author was high writing this but either way one of us was high ON SOMETHING. First few chapters, I thought there was a perfectly maintained balance between insanity and artistry. Then everything took a turn for the worse.

We start off with a key which i think gives us enough insight about how complicated the world's gonna be. In it, end of the world events and culture revolutions are defined and we get an idea of just how fricked the world is. America is Amirkha because something about Amir and Khans, the internet is gone because of a solar flare, and the US somehow banned color. In an apocalyptic world where the world's environmentally fricked, robots or Zeks have been made as genetically engineered non-human beings and we learn our mc Lilith is a sex one. She fails a mission and finds refuge among some hiding ladies in Dizzyland (was Disneyland) who she learns survive by hosting giant orgies. Lilith bonds with them, falls in love, then a benefactor of one of the giant orgies kills one of them and they plot a revenge plan to kill them back during another giant orgy. At said orgy, we meet the possible killer Luxh who's super rich and plans on mass-impregnating one of the ladies (actually a breeder Zek) to colonize a planet and keep humanity surviving. There's a chain reaction of events since Lilith doesn't want him to, the lady wants him to, and then everything's on fire. Literally. At one point Lilith gets a nuke and sets it off and the end.

From someone who has absolutely no idea what "camp" means, this book was felt very campy. It's very gritty, gory, has lot's of sex and attempted rape but also in-depth world-building. It's like the author put every single possible idea of future events into a book, no matter how absurd. Some were just super exaggerated versions of events already happening today in a masked critique of current society which I did appreciate. Exhibit one: the US banning colors stemming from states like Florida banning books. Unless that was just a read I had. Either way, I enjoyed it and similar aspects of the book's world. It had its own charm, especially at the beginning. Like, I want 30 thousand razor sharp teeth in my vagina in case I need to cut off an offending appendage. I want the ability to release truckloads of hormones and chemicals to manipulate emotions. I believe in Pussy Power. Sadly, the book's writing really just declined after the halfway point.

However! It wasn't a total flop and I know if this book ever went mainstream it'd be absolutely bashed but it doesn't deserve that so I'm giving it a 4/5 to counteract those potential bashes. Thank you Netgalley for an ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

I loved getting to learn about this world and how it was different. I was engaged with the characters and how everything worked with this storyline. It was everything that I was hoping for from the genre and thought worked overall. Wine Lo Borgias has a strong writing style and am excited for more.