Crosshairs, by Catherine Hernandez

A near-future dystopia in which a racist, ultraconservative government in Canada (working with a similar government in the US, we’re told, but this story is set in Toronto) rounds up basically anyone who isn’t white, straight, or able-bodied, cuts off access to their financial accounts and transportation, and either straight-out executes them or stuffs them into concentration camps and workhouses. The narrator, a queer femme drag performer, is writing letters to his lost love while on the run and getting involved in the rebellion. It should have been exciting stuff, but the writing is super heavy-handed and the characters often pause in the middle of tense moments to deliver long-winded monologues about intersectionality and allyship. In general I found this really clumsily done, from the unlikely setup, to the extremely flat characters, to a really forced ending.

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