Right off the bat, the world building in this novel is so WIDLY INVENTIVE. I love afro-futurist novels for the way they take our typical themes and weave them into something so new and fantastical. Maybe the pieces themselves aren't totally new, but the way the story is written and the way the world is built up as the characters progress is done so well. I was 100% in this world from the first pages.

What I also found great was the character work, but that is a double-edged sword for me. On the plus side, Seske and Adalla felt like fully realized characters with well written narrative voices that sound distinct from each other. On the negative side - and there's unfortunately more negative than positive - I was right in it with them when they kept making infuriating choices and essentially acting like they were both protagonists in a YA novel. Seske's essential character doesn't change, but Adalla does.

Also, I couldn't really believe that these two were anything like the star crossed lovers this book tried to convice me they were. Seske treated everyone around her like absolute shit, taking everyone for granted - basically acting like the heir to the throne she was. While Seske stayed up at the top of the social hierarchy, Adalla lost everything and everyone she loved and went down...and down...and DOWN, coming out on the other side a scarred woman who needed lots of mental health help. Normally, opposite storylines showing both ends of the spectrum of their society would work for me, but only if anything actually happened to truly change Seske as a person too. I never believed she changed in any way. Sure, she finally made a few good decisions in the end, but they were overshadowed by the time jumps and pacing.

And oh BOY, the pacing. The pacing was WEIRD. At times it felt like we were ambling along at a good pace, learning the world as Seske and Adalla started out, but then the story would suddenly jump ahead weeks or months. It was especially egregious in the last 20% of the book, where most of the big climactic scenes take place. Then the end of the book just kind of...happens.

Ending this on a positive note (because the more I think about Seske, the more I hate her), A LOT OF THE IDEAS IN HERE WERE RAD. The world of the Beast, learning more about the Beast's species, the matriarchal society, the down and dirty business of cuts and acid and shit and piss and goop and gore and TENTACLES (!!!!!!!!! THOSE SCENES???), there are so many weird, wacky, fun sci-fi ideas in here that I really enjoyed as part of the world.

The plot and themes of this book were great, and I loved how different it was from other sci-fi I've experienced. The last bit felt like it went by too quickly for my taste though, and there were a few plot lines that ended rather abruptly, like Sisterkin's.