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Atoms Never Touch
Fierce, poignant sci-fi, about hacking, love, and resistance.
Jumping to alternate realities sounds great, if you're in control. But what if you're not? What if you're propelled away from the people and places you love the most in the blink of an eye? And what if these involuntary journeys happen because your neurochemistry is different, and your brain works differently?
Beautiful, compassionate, and resourceful as she is, this is Rea's problem. A latina trans woman and an academic, she is beloved by a tight circle of friends, who fully accept her without knowing the cause of her disappearances. But she is haunted by the lovers and family that she cannot trace back to, and fears she might be separated from them forever. Each time she transits into a new time and space, everything shifts—even the films and writing Rea produces readjust their molecules to match her new quantum reality. But Rea, a brilliant lay scientist, is determined to crack the code, and end her quest for lasting connections and home.
Jumping to alternate realities sounds great, if you're in control. But what if you're not? What if you're propelled away from the people and places you love the most in the blink of an eye? And what if these involuntary journeys happen because your neurochemistry is different, and your brain works differently?
Beautiful, compassionate, and resourceful as she is, this is Rea's problem. A latina trans woman and an academic, she is beloved by a tight circle of friends, who fully accept her without knowing the cause of her disappearances. But she is haunted by the lovers and family that she cannot trace back to, and fears she might be separated from them forever. Each time she transits into a new time and space, everything shifts—even the films and writing Rea produces readjust their molecules to match her new quantum reality. But Rea, a brilliant lay scientist, is determined to crack the code, and end her quest for lasting connections and home.
152 pages, Paperback
Published October 10, 2023
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1960 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
October 16, 2023
This is a review I have admittedly dreaded writing. I already feel anxious writing a negative review for any book that isn't obscenely oppressive because writing is difficult and I generally think exploring one's creativity regardless of skill is a worthwhile endeavor. I admire micha cárdenas' organizing work on behalf of migrants and have enjoyed the nonfiction writing of hers that I have read. In fact, her essay in another emergent strategy series book - Pleasure Activism - was one of the few that made an otherwise mediocre book a worthwhile read. Given that she has such a wide array of talents, I was looking forward to reading her foray into fiction with Atoms Never Touch. Unfortunately, she is mortal like all of us and there is a limit to her abilities.
To be frank, this book reads like a first draft of a first fiction attempt written by someone who thinks fiction is different from nonfiction in terms of skill needed to write it successfully. An analogy to cárdenas' academic work would be if I decided to write an academic essay in the field she has a PhD in, did no research and no editing and then submitted it to be published in a journal alongside hers. Perhaps blame also lies at the feet of adrienne maree brown who writes a gushing foreword showing that she has read and should have edited or given feedback to her friend before sending this to press. Even if the story was good and the plot and subject matter made sense and were well researched, the writing style is unskilled and very obvious edits would have made it easier to read. In the first paragraph I could already tell what I was in for. It's the kind of writing with repetitive and unnecessary descriptions, "she took her bag to the sink, she put it on the counter by the sink, she washed her hands in the sink then picked up her bag from the counter by the sink," (this is not a direct quote but a fake example since I am reading from an ARC.) It's also one of the biggest examples of writing by someone who has not heard the phrase "show don't tell."
I do not think that this book could have been saved by better writing or editing however. The story itself does not make sense and the book does not know what it wants to be. A large chunk of it is essentially, "so I time traveled to another dimension again, anyway, here's 15 pages on why I like going to the gym and 20 more about this girl I met. Oh yeah time travel is like a huge part of my life but let's not even talk about or describe it, it's completely destroyed everything I know and love but it barely deserves mention and hasn't affected me emotionally really at all, here's 25 more pages about my date." If the science fiction part, which tries and fails to have some basis in fact, was attended to at all, this would be a different book. I was already put off by the title because it in itself represents misinformation. I was willing to forgive this until the titular line inside the book itself where two womens "atoms touched" causing a cascade of events which again made no sense. People who write successful science fiction books- especially those that include things rooted in reality like physics- do research on the topics they include rather than just putting what they think they might mean onto a page.
This book maybe could have been a lesbian love story with all of the half cocked scifi stuff left out of it. Also, the randomly added part where a new trans girl enters the chat (to avoid spoilers you will understand what I mean when you get to it,) felt tokenizing and kind of gross. This might have been able to be fashioned into a near future cyberpunk lesbian love story given the "auglens" technology involved, but the politics within the story necessary for a decent dystopia are also incredibly transparent and carbon copies of a Trump presidency. It's nearly word for word retelling something from real life with no metaphor or allegory in sight. The love story itself is not good, but it at least offers something that we don't see very often in a lot of romance writing. We know from books like This is How You Lose the Time War that a skilled author can indeed write an excellent time travel queer romance novel that draws in fans of all genres. ANT unfortunately fails in all of the ways TiHYLtTW succeeds.
Do I believe the author should never have tried her hand at fiction? No. Creative endeavors are always a good idea. If you want to publish though, take some classes, do a lot of practice writing, get people to read it who will offer actual constructive criticism, scrap the bad drafts, and start over. Choose a topic- time travel OR dystopia OR near future critique of technology, etc- and spend a ton of time doing research to build a believable narrative. If you can pull it off, maybe you can pull off more. The only way this book would have succeeded is if those who read it were honest with the author and told her they love her passion and to start again by including a ton of feedback they had for her. Decent fiction writing, like all of the nonfiction writing that the author has successfully done, takes talent, time, practice, and help. I hope that the next time she gives it a shot, she has a better foundation to draw from, puts more time into researching the story and outlining a structure, and has better folks in her corner with the willingness and ability to help her make it better. Until then, I will stick with where the author's talent and training lie- in her nonfiction work.
This was also posted to my blog.
To be frank, this book reads like a first draft of a first fiction attempt written by someone who thinks fiction is different from nonfiction in terms of skill needed to write it successfully. An analogy to cárdenas' academic work would be if I decided to write an academic essay in the field she has a PhD in, did no research and no editing and then submitted it to be published in a journal alongside hers. Perhaps blame also lies at the feet of adrienne maree brown who writes a gushing foreword showing that she has read and should have edited or given feedback to her friend before sending this to press. Even if the story was good and the plot and subject matter made sense and were well researched, the writing style is unskilled and very obvious edits would have made it easier to read. In the first paragraph I could already tell what I was in for. It's the kind of writing with repetitive and unnecessary descriptions, "she took her bag to the sink, she put it on the counter by the sink, she washed her hands in the sink then picked up her bag from the counter by the sink," (this is not a direct quote but a fake example since I am reading from an ARC.) It's also one of the biggest examples of writing by someone who has not heard the phrase "show don't tell."
I do not think that this book could have been saved by better writing or editing however. The story itself does not make sense and the book does not know what it wants to be. A large chunk of it is essentially, "so I time traveled to another dimension again, anyway, here's 15 pages on why I like going to the gym and 20 more about this girl I met. Oh yeah time travel is like a huge part of my life but let's not even talk about or describe it, it's completely destroyed everything I know and love but it barely deserves mention and hasn't affected me emotionally really at all, here's 25 more pages about my date." If the science fiction part, which tries and fails to have some basis in fact, was attended to at all, this would be a different book. I was already put off by the title because it in itself represents misinformation. I was willing to forgive this until the titular line inside the book itself where two womens "atoms touched" causing a cascade of events which again made no sense. People who write successful science fiction books- especially those that include things rooted in reality like physics- do research on the topics they include rather than just putting what they think they might mean onto a page.
This book maybe could have been a lesbian love story with all of the half cocked scifi stuff left out of it. Also, the randomly added part where a new trans girl enters the chat (to avoid spoilers you will understand what I mean when you get to it,) felt tokenizing and kind of gross. This might have been able to be fashioned into a near future cyberpunk lesbian love story given the "auglens" technology involved, but the politics within the story necessary for a decent dystopia are also incredibly transparent and carbon copies of a Trump presidency. It's nearly word for word retelling something from real life with no metaphor or allegory in sight. The love story itself is not good, but it at least offers something that we don't see very often in a lot of romance writing. We know from books like This is How You Lose the Time War that a skilled author can indeed write an excellent time travel queer romance novel that draws in fans of all genres. ANT unfortunately fails in all of the ways TiHYLtTW succeeds.
Do I believe the author should never have tried her hand at fiction? No. Creative endeavors are always a good idea. If you want to publish though, take some classes, do a lot of practice writing, get people to read it who will offer actual constructive criticism, scrap the bad drafts, and start over. Choose a topic- time travel OR dystopia OR near future critique of technology, etc- and spend a ton of time doing research to build a believable narrative. If you can pull it off, maybe you can pull off more. The only way this book would have succeeded is if those who read it were honest with the author and told her they love her passion and to start again by including a ton of feedback they had for her. Decent fiction writing, like all of the nonfiction writing that the author has successfully done, takes talent, time, practice, and help. I hope that the next time she gives it a shot, she has a better foundation to draw from, puts more time into researching the story and outlining a structure, and has better folks in her corner with the willingness and ability to help her make it better. Until then, I will stick with where the author's talent and training lie- in her nonfiction work.
This was also posted to my blog.
September 13, 2024
as a white, comp sci major, kinda punk, trans guy, I had high expectations for this book but it did NOT look up. I thought it would be all about hacking, science, and a touch of queer but it ended up being such a scam.
There was only like 3 times in the whole book the main character ever did any hacking. At points i forgot she was even a hacker because most of the dialogue was just about sex, love, and how afraid the characters are of things.
It seemed to be trying to be a political book/written protest, but it could never decide what to focus on. I tried to think of the story and what it was trying to say, but i couldnt figure it out. The author was trying to write a 120 page book about trans struggles, Latin American struggles, motherhood struggles, and the government. Id love if the book delved deeper into any of them more, but it felt like the author wasnt skilled enough to incorporate all these in a satisfying way.
Dont even get me started on how dry and unexciting the plot was. I feel like i accomplished nothing the whole story. The “plot twist” was weird and didnt make any sense. It all felt rushed
If youre a trans fem person, excited to be a mother, vaguely interested in comp sci, (mabye also Latin American), you will eat this up. But me personally, this book didnt click.
There was only like 3 times in the whole book the main character ever did any hacking. At points i forgot she was even a hacker because most of the dialogue was just about sex, love, and how afraid the characters are of things.
It seemed to be trying to be a political book/written protest, but it could never decide what to focus on. I tried to think of the story and what it was trying to say, but i couldnt figure it out. The author was trying to write a 120 page book about trans struggles, Latin American struggles, motherhood struggles, and the government. Id love if the book delved deeper into any of them more, but it felt like the author wasnt skilled enough to incorporate all these in a satisfying way.
Dont even get me started on how dry and unexciting the plot was. I feel like i accomplished nothing the whole story. The “plot twist” was weird and didnt make any sense. It all felt rushed
If youre a trans fem person, excited to be a mother, vaguely interested in comp sci, (mabye also Latin American), you will eat this up. But me personally, this book didnt click.
December 26, 2024
I love the way that at the end the whole book wraps up in a nice bow. Some crazy plot twists at the end too. I think there were some parts that seemed unnecessary to the plot (ex. The bunch of pages about Cora’s love for the gym) but overall I liked this book a lot.
I found it very interesting that it was set in a futuristic time but there are still the same social struggles and prejudice. I also liked the tying in of the social struggles with the physics of it all.
A couple gripes I have is that is wish there was an explanation of wth auglenses were in the beginning of the book. I was so lost for so long. I also wish the book talked more about the actual physics and calculus of their equations instead of just talking about them having equations, but that is more of a me wanting to nerd out thing.
Overall I enjoyed this book and sped through it at the end there. Loved the ending.
I found it very interesting that it was set in a futuristic time but there are still the same social struggles and prejudice. I also liked the tying in of the social struggles with the physics of it all.
A couple gripes I have is that is wish there was an explanation of wth auglenses were in the beginning of the book. I was so lost for so long. I also wish the book talked more about the actual physics and calculus of their equations instead of just talking about them having equations, but that is more of a me wanting to nerd out thing.
Overall I enjoyed this book and sped through it at the end there. Loved the ending.
January 15, 2024
unfortunately this was bad
October 30, 2023
With the publication of Octavia’s Brood, a book that Micha Cárdenas claims as the most direct inspiration for this one, we saw activists who don’t necessarily have a lot of experience writing fiction try their hand at sci-fi. While the collection has its devotees, I recall feeling lukewarm on what I’ve read from it. The obvious problem is that people who haven’t written fiction before are less likely to be good at it. Sure, their relationship to social movements leads them to choose prescient themes for their work, but that doesn’t equal the execution of a compelling narrative. When compared to forebears like Octavia herself, the gulf is obvious. Butler’s settings and characters might not be as obvious referents for activists as, say, the BLM-style protests we see in this novel. But operating at that remove is part of the point—it is through experiencing something radically different from our present reality, an exercise of the imagination, that the power of a writer like Octavia Butler takes hold.
This experience is not always what is felt when reading AK Press’s new Black Dawn series, or the fictional iterations of its Emergent Strategy series, both part of a stated intention to further explorations of pressing themes facing social movements through fiction. With the exception of the surprisingly strong Begin the World Over by Kung Li Sun, other novels under this imprint that I have read have faced that same issue: the choice of an exciting premise that you would be unlikely to find in mainstream fiction, and then an execution of a story based on that premise that leaves something to be desired.
Sadly, Atoms Never Touch falls in this category. Sad, because the premise does sound like great fun indeed, and really there are a lot of likable qualities to this book — trans stuff, hacker stuff, anti government crime stuff, alternate reality stuff, the love of music and food is obvious… But it simply does not cohere into an effective novel.
The first chapter I thought was actually quite good, and had me excited for the rest. I thought that it introduced new information at a satisfying clip, and opened the door for many story threads to be explored further: augmented reality, a new government administration, gender transition, romance, travel, hacking. I thought the author neatly raised many questions in this chapter, and I looked forward to seeing how they would be answered. But this feeling did not last. The second chapter, rather than deepening our understanding of some of the many questions that had been raised, switches us to a new perspective, and zooms way out in scope, reading more like a summary than anything.
This kind of scattershot feeling dogged the book to the end. The pacing felt like it was out the window, and themes would seemingly be raised without then being fully integrated into the meaning of the story. Meanwhile, choices like having a major aspect of the setting be a kind of thinly veiled fictionalization of the Trump election were disappointing in more ways than one. At bottom it comes down to the question of imagination I brought up earlier — it felt like a failure of imagination for a sci fi writer to simply present us the election scenario from six years ago, without any kind of new frame on it, especially when that election and presidency garner disproportionate attention in our political ecosystem already, in the sense that a classic reactive attitude right now is the idea that Trump and his ilk are the alpha and omega of evil, as if there is no soil they have sprung from.
The science in this science fiction also felt like it was only halfway there in terms of being a real part of the story, something connected intimately to the trajectories of the characters, rather than just a whim of the author. While the involuntarily-pulled-between-realities premise brings to mind themes of trauma and political disempowerment, both of which are explored in the novel, somehow it feels like opportunities were missed to really dive into the richness of this sci fi premise as a lens to understand these themes. They felt like they were coexisting, rather than in conversation with each other. I also expected that the ending would entail a simultaneous scientific and emotional breakthrough, an ending that did not just solve a scientific quandary but that also allowed for a revelatory moment where a character gained new insight into themself. Instead, the resolution of the novel felt practically incidental.
I do think that there are enough good ideas here that this novel deserved at least one more draft before it saw the light of day. And the author seems like she'd be fun to have as a friend.
This experience is not always what is felt when reading AK Press’s new Black Dawn series, or the fictional iterations of its Emergent Strategy series, both part of a stated intention to further explorations of pressing themes facing social movements through fiction. With the exception of the surprisingly strong Begin the World Over by Kung Li Sun, other novels under this imprint that I have read have faced that same issue: the choice of an exciting premise that you would be unlikely to find in mainstream fiction, and then an execution of a story based on that premise that leaves something to be desired.
Sadly, Atoms Never Touch falls in this category. Sad, because the premise does sound like great fun indeed, and really there are a lot of likable qualities to this book — trans stuff, hacker stuff, anti government crime stuff, alternate reality stuff, the love of music and food is obvious… But it simply does not cohere into an effective novel.
The first chapter I thought was actually quite good, and had me excited for the rest. I thought that it introduced new information at a satisfying clip, and opened the door for many story threads to be explored further: augmented reality, a new government administration, gender transition, romance, travel, hacking. I thought the author neatly raised many questions in this chapter, and I looked forward to seeing how they would be answered. But this feeling did not last. The second chapter, rather than deepening our understanding of some of the many questions that had been raised, switches us to a new perspective, and zooms way out in scope, reading more like a summary than anything.
This kind of scattershot feeling dogged the book to the end. The pacing felt like it was out the window, and themes would seemingly be raised without then being fully integrated into the meaning of the story. Meanwhile, choices like having a major aspect of the setting be a kind of thinly veiled fictionalization of the Trump election were disappointing in more ways than one. At bottom it comes down to the question of imagination I brought up earlier — it felt like a failure of imagination for a sci fi writer to simply present us the election scenario from six years ago, without any kind of new frame on it, especially when that election and presidency garner disproportionate attention in our political ecosystem already, in the sense that a classic reactive attitude right now is the idea that Trump and his ilk are the alpha and omega of evil, as if there is no soil they have sprung from.
The science in this science fiction also felt like it was only halfway there in terms of being a real part of the story, something connected intimately to the trajectories of the characters, rather than just a whim of the author. While the involuntarily-pulled-between-realities premise brings to mind themes of trauma and political disempowerment, both of which are explored in the novel, somehow it feels like opportunities were missed to really dive into the richness of this sci fi premise as a lens to understand these themes. They felt like they were coexisting, rather than in conversation with each other. I also expected that the ending would entail a simultaneous scientific and emotional breakthrough, an ending that did not just solve a scientific quandary but that also allowed for a revelatory moment where a character gained new insight into themself. Instead, the resolution of the novel felt practically incidental.
I do think that there are enough good ideas here that this novel deserved at least one more draft before it saw the light of day. And the author seems like she'd be fun to have as a friend.
October 22, 2024
I should have known better when the description on the back used the terms “neurochemistry” and “quantum reality” but I bought this anyway :/ Full disclosure, as much as I wanted to hate read the whole thing, I showed some restraint and dnf, but I’ve seen enough.
What I should have been clued into before starting, this is a book about a girl who is super good at science written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about science, and it’s my personal favorite novel pitfall to make fun of because it’s so bad it’s funny.
Some things that make no sense:
1. Hacking into the government’s system from an airplane because the airplane wifi is untraceable…does VPN and/or the Tor browser not exist in this dystopian world??
2. Why is she planning such an elaborate scheme to rewrite the criminal record databases? Girl, two words: rm -rf/*
3. The mentions of these mysterious “changes at the quantum level”. Show me the wave equation so I know what you’re talking about
4. Wtf is a proton cloud?
5. A character has such good sex that some of the stars and rocks in the milky way have moved. First of all, how are you seeing ROCKS in the milky way by eye? Second of all, all the stars and rocks in the milky way are ALWAYS moving, so you gotta be more specific - is this movement due to the expansion of the universe, orbital motion inside the milky way, orbital motion around stars, rotational motion, or movement with respect to us due to the earth’s rotation (moving 360 degrees in the sky every 23h56m), orbital motion (parallax), or something smaller like precession??
6. Saying the above is a quantum effect. ??! Stars are the opposite of quantum actually
And this was just the first ten pages!!! This book is so dumb and badly written that I had to look at the author bio because I thought it was a cringey satire on chronically online liberals, but noo. Also, speaking of the author bio, what is it with the all lowercase names? Who are you, bell hooks???
LASTLY I will be suing for damages and emotional distress after I had to read this sentence:
“She held me so tenderly, one arm around my shoulders, fingers inside me, and as I shook, the molecules around us found new arrangements”
What I should have been clued into before starting, this is a book about a girl who is super good at science written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about science, and it’s my personal favorite novel pitfall to make fun of because it’s so bad it’s funny.
Some things that make no sense:
1. Hacking into the government’s system from an airplane because the airplane wifi is untraceable…does VPN and/or the Tor browser not exist in this dystopian world??
2. Why is she planning such an elaborate scheme to rewrite the criminal record databases? Girl, two words: rm -rf/*
3. The mentions of these mysterious “changes at the quantum level”. Show me the wave equation so I know what you’re talking about
4. Wtf is a proton cloud?
5. A character has such good sex that some of the stars and rocks in the milky way have moved. First of all, how are you seeing ROCKS in the milky way by eye? Second of all, all the stars and rocks in the milky way are ALWAYS moving, so you gotta be more specific - is this movement due to the expansion of the universe, orbital motion inside the milky way, orbital motion around stars, rotational motion, or movement with respect to us due to the earth’s rotation (moving 360 degrees in the sky every 23h56m), orbital motion (parallax), or something smaller like precession??
6. Saying the above is a quantum effect. ??! Stars are the opposite of quantum actually
And this was just the first ten pages!!! This book is so dumb and badly written that I had to look at the author bio because I thought it was a cringey satire on chronically online liberals, but noo. Also, speaking of the author bio, what is it with the all lowercase names? Who are you, bell hooks???
LASTLY I will be suing for damages and emotional distress after I had to read this sentence:
“She held me so tenderly, one arm around my shoulders, fingers inside me, and as I shook, the molecules around us found new arrangements”
October 17, 2023
This is a novel that challenges all of what we believe we know about the world, and the universe. It starts with two persons, Cora and Rea. Cora is trans and a lesbian, I think Rea is cis-female but also a lesbian. In addition it plays with science fiction and things like quantum physics and entanglement and a method that "will be" discovered based on the fact that somebody about Rea allows her to slip between different times and places.
Starting in what I personally believe to be 2016, based on the discription of the person who is elected to lead the United States, and ends a century into the future when humanity is spread far and wide, and many scattered over time. However, we are left knowing that a new upheaval and change is about to take place that will probably make what humanity has been though look relatively tame.
The book is recommended for those that are willing and interested in dealing with both gender concepts and different looks at what reality actually amounts to.
Starting in what I personally believe to be 2016, based on the discription of the person who is elected to lead the United States, and ends a century into the future when humanity is spread far and wide, and many scattered over time. However, we are left knowing that a new upheaval and change is about to take place that will probably make what humanity has been though look relatively tame.
The book is recommended for those that are willing and interested in dealing with both gender concepts and different looks at what reality actually amounts to.
May 8, 2025
This was really hard to read if I’m going to be honest. I couldn’t even tell you what the overall plot was it was so hard to interpret. She like falls in love with a girl and then has a baby in a different universe and then magically all three of them are in the same universe? No ideaaaaaa couldn’t tell you a thing about what happened. I think it’s super sad some people bashed this book for an unreasonable society or being overdramatic when truly everything she wrote about the US government with Trump actually ended up happening so I do feel for this book I think no body understood that it would predict our times in the way that it did but honestly I don’t recommend this book just read any nonfiction book about POC LGBTQ americans you’ll learn more that way.
November 11, 2023
This book tries too hard. It’s trying so hard to say all the right things, to be kind and caring, to show the relationships between oppression, incarceration, climate change and it’s just so awkward and dry. Computer geeks will enjoy all the hacking language, but I didn’t. And the ending…almost happy, but then…barely associated with the main plot cliff hanger.
December 20, 2025
I think this might have worked as a short story. The concept was neat, and the issues addressed are worthy ones, but for me there was too much overexplaining, lots of telling rather than showing. There are parts of the plot that feel like they are contrived to make it all fit rather than an organic part of the characters' worlds. But if it had been tightened down to key moments and joined more poetically I think it might have worked better. It was a creative idea, but for me it didn't really work as a novel and was pretty hard to finish.
December 29, 2023
I unfortunately got partway into this and decided I wasn't going to finish it. The idea sounded great, but each chapter felt like 2/3 political topics and 1/3 characters and story. And while I'm totally sympathetic to the politics in play, it didn't make the book the kind of read I was after. After several chapters, the story hadn't progressed and I didn't feel like I knew the characters at all. Maybe if I stuck it out longer, but it's hard to tell, unfortunately.
August 9, 2024
Some really good insights into the key (trans, geek, latina, C-PTSD) characters, and way too close to home for US politics of just a few years ago. There were a lot of moving pieces to put together. I thought it was a great concept and a pretty good story. I think it would have been great to sprinkle at least some lighter moments throughout the book. I was glad to see a happy ending but it was hard to enjoy after so much heavy, heavy intensity.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2024
I was going to give it 3 stars, meaning I enjoyed it sorta and might recommend it to some folks. But then it got to the narcissistic baby making part. Nope. If you are a child of sperm donors or adopted or had narcissistic parents or for any reason were dispossessed of your history, you might feel some kind of way about this story.
May 10, 2024
The science part of this sci-fi is more physics and computer science which threw me off a bit and made it difficult for me to understand that layer. I liked the intertwining of the stories and different narrators. The ending seemed a bit rushed, and I feel like parts of the narrative were left loose even with the epilogue at the end.
July 7, 2024
micha has a brilliant mind, and it was a treat to read this book. I was captivated and could barely put it down! This book, like a true work of art, made me feel and yearn. It gave me wanderlust, and it gave me appreciation of life. It also inspired hope to keep fighting toward a better world in solidarity with the awesome people already doing so. I highly recommend this book!
January 29, 2024
Unfortunately it really was a confusing, confused mess of a time travel/dimension traveling story. I can tell the author has talent, but this effort didn’t seem like it was ready to be published.
March 16, 2024
Using physics in a variety of forms and ways, this novel of finding yourself and love in a chaotic universe is unique, if a bit uneven.
Recommended!
Recommended!
May 6, 2024
It took me a while to get through the first half but i finished the second half in a day. The writing is a little green but I was touched by the story
Read
January 18, 2025Ooof, I wanted to love this so bad. The description alone was a hard “hell yes” for me. But I suspect I would enjoy cárdenas academic endeavors more. I kept thinking this read very “clinical”.
May 3, 2025
genre bending and poignant - cannot recommend this enough
July 24, 2025
2.5
this book had a lot of heart but did not make a lot of sense.
this book had a lot of heart but did not make a lot of sense.
July 25, 2025
I love books that stretch my brain, and this one is outstanding! So interesting on so many levels! Both a quick read and a deep thought-provoking read!
September 12, 2025
Don't think it was that hard to follow. I like the plot decently enough, there is only so much you can in only 120 pages
November 7, 2025
ending felt kinda... odd and sudden? like not as impactful as it ought to hace been. the epilogue was interesting though.
December 30, 2025
Queer, feminist cyberpunk novel. Instead of being set in a dystopian future, it’s set, more or less, in our dystopian present, with different technology.
January 5, 2026
objectively 2.5 stars but 4 stars for me. needed to be longer or shorter I think
April 22, 2025
I loved this so much, I finished it in one sitting. It's not the high-brow novel that some reviewers appear to have expected, it's just a good enjoyable read.
February 8, 2025
Mixed feelings. I love the idea of this book and the metaphor. I think the metaphor and the complex trauma could have been better explored. I liked the characters and the technology. It would make a GREAT graphic novel.
It was heavy handed politically at times. Where it could have shown us intersectional politics with nuance, it missed opportunities. And then told us what to think in a rush. It got boring at times. I wish that I had learned something about physics. Or coding. And the ending wasn't satisfying. But it needed editing. However,
I like when books are a bit of an anthology of lit, philosophy and culture at the intersection of genres. While this book was post modern in a good way, it could have gone further with that too. I would've appreciated more references (not just naming authors) in more of a hide and seek for nerds kind of way.
It lacked subtlety and could have been significantly better with some extra love and drafting. But I still liked it.
It was heavy handed politically at times. Where it could have shown us intersectional politics with nuance, it missed opportunities. And then told us what to think in a rush. It got boring at times. I wish that I had learned something about physics. Or coding. And the ending wasn't satisfying. But it needed editing. However,
I like when books are a bit of an anthology of lit, philosophy and culture at the intersection of genres. While this book was post modern in a good way, it could have gone further with that too. I would've appreciated more references (not just naming authors) in more of a hide and seek for nerds kind of way.
It lacked subtlety and could have been significantly better with some extra love and drafting. But I still liked it.
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December 2, 2025This is definitely on the softer side of sci-fi - if you know a lot about quantum theory or even computer hacking, you'll probably be put off. Thankfully, I am so blissfully oblivious of any STEM knowledge that I could really enjoy the idea of love-chemical-triggered-quantum-reality-jumping. It's a very sweet story ultimately about the Power Of Love in a way that doesn't feel entirely like a platitude.
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