INTO THE REAL

Fractured among three worlds, a genderqueer teen faces monsters as they struggle to solve a paradox.

Seventeen-year-old Quinn exists in three alternate realities. Each provides distinct traumatic trials—flesh-eating monsters, conversion therapy, and civil war. In all of the realities, Quinn grapples with defining their gender identity and rejection due to their queerness while longing for Lia, a cisgender girl. In one life, Lia is viciously transphobic while proclaiming support for other queer identities. As Quinn awakens to the connection among the realities, they must decide which one they want to inhabit. The human characters default to White; although Quinn’s resistance army claims to fight White supremacists, no people of color play a role. The fighters espouse blatantly sexist and homophobic views, and as their hero, Quinn champions a peaceful compromise with fascist enemies and wrestles with internal discomfort over not speaking up against their soldiers’ blatant bias. In one reality, the sacred Indigenous practice of burning sage is carried out by White characters for protection from monsters. Despite the fast-paced action, explicit violence, and suspenseful appeal of the premise, the novel feels flat, with long expository passages disrupting the flow. Perhaps because the characters play different roles in Quinn’s life in each reality, they feel distant and underdeveloped, lowering the emotional stakes.

An ambitious undertaking weakened by its execution.