I'll start by saying that I love A.S. King. I look up to her, she inspires me, and I've lived with her books for a long time.

While she's always had a quirky writing style, her more recent works, including Pick the Lock, have leaned heavily into magical realism to the point of seeming almost surreal. It takes commitment and a desire to understand the deeper message to read a book like this one, and I can understand why some people don't have the patience for it. However, I loved it. This story felt very important to me, and I think it's truly my second-favorite thing I've read by A.S. King (only second to the one and only Please Ignore Vera Dietz).

While there were times where King was delivering a message that felt a little basic / like it should be common knowledge, I'm willing to acknowledge that I, a woman in her twenties, am not necessarily the target audience for this book. It's YA, and we can all always learn from this genre regardless of age, but I'm imagining a girl younger than me – a girl still in middle or high school – reading this book as her introduction to the topics A.S. King is covering, and I think it's stellar in that situation. It challenges readers who have not thought about this topic deeply before, who maybe have a tendency to judge victims instead of abusers.

And even with that, I'm still not entirely sure I'm fully picking up everything A.S. King is trying to put down here. Whether that's from a simple misinterpretation or lack of understanding on my part or because King could've explained a little more clearly, I'm not sure. But it was a pleasure to read and it's a pleasure to continue thinking about it and mulling it over now that I've finished.