I loved this book, and it’s obvious the author did a lot of research. I went into this not really knowing what I was about to read, and I don’t want to spoil it by giving away too much of the plot. I want other readers to go on the journey I went on. For so much of the book, I wasn’t sure where it was going. Here are some things I liked about the book: Carrie struggling with the expectations of others, trying to do the right thing when everything seems wrong, struggles with bigotry and being invalidated about struggles of marginalized groups, and as a professor - I liked reading about Carrie’s life in academia. If you have ever wondered about how to make life more fair, if you have ever struggled to figure out what’s the right thing, you need to read this book. This is something I hope to be able to recommend to students of mine who are interested in social justice.

The whole premise of designing a government from scratch was interesting, and I enjoyed Carrie as a character. That being said, this book was barely science fiction. I think it could have benefited from more differentiation between the world the story was set in and our own.