Interesting world building and wonderful writing kept me reading this even as I just didn't want to. To explain, it cuts close to the bone and plays off themes in the real world. Fascism, poverty, climate disasters, homelessness, and labor camps abound until Kay decides that enough is enough. Bahadur, Kay, and Beck band together to fight back against the darkness. It's a fast paced read with some surprises. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

📚 Wowww, this was horrifying. The world of CROSSHAIRS is only a breath away from our own, and it's easy to see the path we'd take to reach it.
📚 Heavy emphasis on intersectionality and how differently oppression works for queer BIPOC and trans people than for white cis queer people who could pass as straight if they wanted to.
📚 The flashback scenes to Kay's drag days were so joyful and loving.
📚 Great discussions of how allyship is an action, not just a label, and how white people can use their privilege to both lift up BIPOC leaders and to put their bodies on the front lines.
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What I didn't like:
📚 A lot of the dialogue was stiff and unnatural, which took me out of the story a few times.
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Content warnings: Ableism, bullying, child abuse, child death, deadnaming, death, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, genocide, gun violence, hate crime, homophobia, Islamophobia, kidnapping, physical abuse, police brutality, racial slurs, racism, rape, religious bigotry, sexism, sexual violence, suicide, suicidal thoughts, torture, transphobia, violence, and xenophobia.

Stunned at this book. The writing sucked me in and forced me to read until I fell asleep, then I woke up and finished the book.

These types of acts are sadly happening already in our world. What will you do in order to not be complicit?

Consider it. We all deserve to live. Let's help each other live.

To say I "like" this book doesn't feel right. It's terrifying and real; you can feel the emotion so clearly. This dystopia is too close to home. The writing is crisp and I'm going go to Hernandez's backlist. If you're an Own Voices reviewer, as I am, take care of yourself. If you're not, read this for a window into our nightmares.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. I'll be posting my review on Goodreads and Amazon

I was so intrigued by the premise but unfortunately the tone of this book and the nature of the sexual content makes it all wrong for my audience. Thanks for allowing me to take a look.

A cautionary tale set in the near future in Toronto, Canada, this novel draws on contemporary politics to remind us of the fragility of freedom, that is, how quickly the rhetoric of othering can cross the line into actions of othering. A powerful far-right group in Toronto uses a climate catastrophe as the pretext for establishing work settlements for “The Others,” that is the disabled, people of colour, and members of the LGBTQ2S community, that in reality are extermination camps. The novel is at its best when it is looking back in time to that moment when so many, including those the government will label “Other,” failed to heed the warning signs of a fast encroaching fascist regime, because they are either too wrapped up in the everyday struggle to survive or too committed to denial that they ignored what was happening around them. As Queen Kay, a queer black performer, who first must hide and then learn how to fight back, recalls: “We shrugged our shoulders each time a restaurant refused us service, delightfully held hands and tried our luck elsewhere. We wove through countless protest marches and political demonstrations to catch a movie, only to be told in not so many words that we were no longer allowed in such spaces, so we would shrug our shoulders again, head home, and make love.” Like so many, Queen Kay did not see the danger until it was too late, until she was forced into hiding, until she had to find within herself once again the belief that she deserved to live, because the government with each humiliation stole her hard-won identity and self-esteem. This was not the first time that Queen Kay had experienced devastating humiliation and torture; the first time was at the hands of her mother and the religious community that she had joined: “My mother, my own mother, filled a glass with water from the tap. My own mother did not look at me as the zip-tied my hands behind the chair, poked and prodded me. My own mother shut her face off, shut her body off…” as they threw holy water in his face and screamed at him to repent.” It is a subtle reminder of the ambiguous line that separates perpetrator from bystander from victim. For his mother who once victimized him also belongs to the world of the Others that the provincial government is now systematically exploiting and killing. Similarly, while the race dimension is front and centre in this story of repression and genocide, we see how the categories that separate “Other” from so-called true Canadian is both porous and arbitrary. The reader sees the female “Boot” officer who is in fact of Iranian heritage, who hides behind the uniform while persecuting others of her same heritage. We see how poor whites, although seemingly safe from the government’s campaign of genocide, are in fact just one step away from being othered as well. We see this when we discover Beck’s elderly parents living on a farm where the animals are all dead and there is no fresh water to be had. Their skin colour only gives them a limited amount of protection for this genocidal campaign is also a class war, in which the rich succeed in exploiting the poor whites by championing racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. There were times in this novel when I thought that the author should have made these themes more explicit. But after much thought I realized that the subtlety with which they are presented is what makes this seemingly fantastical dystopian novel so powerful and eerily realistic. If they were more explicit, their ability to lure so many of us into a false sense of security would not be so great.

Unfortunately I think this was a wrong book wrong time. With the current political climate I think a dystopian book was just a bit too real and not escapist enough for what I am looking for right now. I look forward to giving this one another shot in the future.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Im a huge dystopian junkie! This book is amazing! If you like this genre You'll definitely love this story. The author is native & latinx, and I just related to so much of what was present throughout this book! love love love!

"It was clear as day what we marched for. We marched because we deserved to live”⁣⁣
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Trigger warnings: ⁣⁣
Labor Camps⁣⁣
Genocide
Transphobia
Homophobia ⁣⁣
Racial and LGBT+ slurs,⁣⁣
Sexual Assault,⁣⁣
Systemic Oppression by marginalized groups..... ⁣⁣
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Set in a terrifyingly dystopian near-future Canada (Toronto), with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes on the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labor camps.⁣⁣
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Catherine Hernandez (the author of "Scarborough") weaves an unforgettable and timely dystopian raw tale about a near-future, where a queer Black performer and his allies join forces to rise up when an oppressive regime gathers those deemed “Other” into concentration camps.⁣⁣
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This was a fierce read, uncomfortable at times for a reader but an important read considering some countries in regards to politics and the LGBTQIA community.⁣⁣
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Loved the drag culture and depictions mentioned in the book, the resistance shown by the LGBTQ+ community, the allyship and flashbacks leading up to the revolution.⁣⁣
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Mark your calendar for December 08 2020 and THANK YOU to @atriabooks for the gifted eARC.

“We ate. We ate well. Some of us grew families. Some of us grew gardens. Some of us were lucky enough to grow older. Some of us did not survive.”

THANK YOU to @tylerisbooked and @atriabooks for helping me get my hands on an advanced read copy of this.

Crosshairs is set in dystopian Canada, in a future that doesn’t seem all too impossible or all too far away. Society has been divided into “True Canadians” and “Others” - the stakes are not just property or rights, but a fight to be considered human. The story jumps through time, following a tight cast of characters who are connected in intricate ways. Kay, Bahadur and Firuzeh are not just hiding, but training in firearms and resistance. Flashbacks to the past show memories of love, family, and hardships typical of the marginalized experience. These characters are resilient because they have been fighting for their whole lives.

Here are some things I loved in the novel:
👑Riotously fun scenes of drag/ballroom culture - Kay is a queen and a GOOD one at that
👑Intentional and thoughtful use of language that we should all be adopting and normalizing.
👑While the characters ask “how did we get here?”, Hernandez gets the reader to ask, “how do we make sure we NEVER get here?”

A couple things that were a miss:
🌸Slightly clunky transitions between time and tense stunted the flow of the narrative a little bit, and didn’t get enough build-up to the events.
🌸Yes there were gems of poetic language, but also somewhat cheesy dialogue. It felt like what I call “the last 3 minutes of a 90s sitcom” where there is sentimental music and a teachable moment, you know?

Overall this was super enjoyable and a fast read, and I want to see more from this author!

Read this if you like: Parable of Sower, drag culture and queens, imaging a hunky gay man teaching firearms to diverse cast of resistance fighters, finding home even after losing everything

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Crosshairs is a powerful, highly relevant, gut-punch of a book. It's technically a "dystopian", but a lot of the subjects it tackles feel uncomfortably contemporary. Crosshairs is particularly powerful because it explores how social injustices disproportionately impact marginalized communities, in this case BIPOC LGBTQ2S+ folks.

The main character is Kay Nopuente, a Jamaican-Filipino drag queen who is forced to run when the Canadian government rounds up persons they consider "Others" to work in forced labour camps. In this world, the Canadian PM is basically a Trump twin, and the US and Canada are united in a singular philosophy that dehumanizes Others, and reduces them to means of production.

Race, sexuality, wealth, and disability are all factors in how one is classified as an Other in Crosshair's world, and Hernandez is very much on point in showing how much intersectionality plays a role in these determinations. Black and Brown LBTQ2S+ characters talk about how they cannot simply "pass", because of their skin colour, whereas a chapter mentions how white gay men are back to walking along Church Street, albeit with somewhat adapted movements.

Hernandez also explores the varying degrees of Other-ness across BIPOC folks. A Black restaurant worker is immediately dismissed as an Other (we have no indication about whether or not his sexuality played a role), and some wealthy Others (we have no indication about specific identities that rendered them Other) have tried to assimilate but failed. In contrast, within the forced labour camps, some Asian women (we have no indication of particular ethnicities beyond "Asian") are helping the military maintain control over the Others, in exchange for their children's safety. With all three examples, perhaps most troubling is that while Hernandez didn't go into too much specifics on these characters' intersecting identities, many of us likely have ideas on how to fill in the blanks. Which in itself is an indication of how real and how contemporary these subjects are, despite the fictional nature of the story playing out.

Beyond Kay, we also have a full cast of characters of colour -- Bahadur Talebi, a non-binary person who just wants to lay low so they can survive; Firuzeh Pasdar, a social worker who tries to help as many Others as she can until she herself is captured; Emma Singh, a Deaf woman who befriends Firuzeh; and so many more. The government's targeted attacks on Others affects each of them in different ways, and while some don't survive, all their stories are shown to matter. Hernandez also presents us with white allies: Liv, a woman who goes undercover in spaces of power by marrying a powerful man; and Beck, a white gay man who provides Kay and Bahadur with shelter and combat training.

This book is a compelling read, but by no means an easy one. Hernandez pulls no punches in talking about racism, homophobia, violence and all sorts of things. She does so in a respectful manner -- offensive slurs are x'd out, and when describing the aftermath of a violent death driven by racism, the narration focuses on the victim's humanity rather than the gory details -- but it's all very disquieting. There's a fury within the narration that demands our attention, and beyond that, our action. While the details of the world in Crosshairs are fictional, it's a reality that's far too easy to imagine events playing out as Hernandez has outlined. In the event of a natural disaster (in this book, a flood), we know that wealth, skin colour, and so on, all play a factor in how well each of us will fare. We only need to look at how the COVID-19 situation is playing out in Toronto to see that the communities most affected by the pandemic are also the communities most likely to be labelled Others in Crosshairs.

A couple minor snags for me with this book: first is that the narrative moves between timelines, from present-day to flashbacks, often told as stories between characters sharing their experiences. I found some of the shifts confusing, and particularly with such a large cast of characters, I sometimes found myself having to think hard to remember who a character was and what their role was in the story.

Another snag for me was the cringeworthy exercises Beck, Liv, and other white allies did to embody allyship. Their reasoning was sound: their needed to unlearn an entire lifetime of white supremacy, and particularly of accepting their culpability in propagating this, despite being, by most markers, woke. But then they do this by doing movement exercises at dawn, while chanting mantras about how the world should not be all about them. Possibly, Hernandez intended this to be cringey -- certainly, Kay and Bahadur are both as skeptical at first as I am.

But then this part of the story takes an earnest turn. Beck's mom decides to try the exercises, and we see her entire, painful process of unlearning: from acting super awkward to Kay and Bahadur, to arguing that she's a "good person" and "not at all racist", to eventually responding with genuine empathy to a story Kay tells. And in the big march scene at the end, all the white allies perform a gesture that is basically designed to show their support without taking the spotlight away from Black and Brown folks.

As I write this, I've come to believe that Hernandez did intend this plot thread to be uncomfortable. As a woman of colour, the whole morning exercise routine struck me as being very performative. And even the allyship gesture at the end, while certainly done in earnest by the white characters, still felt not-enough. I give characters like Liv, Beck, and to a lesser extent, even Beck's mom a pass, because I see how they have actually risked themselves to support Others, but the fact that they have to do a literal daily dance to make this support genuine added a sheen of performativity to their support. To me, at least.

Crosshairs invites multiple readings. It'll likely cause some kind of discomfort for every reader, and deliberately so. And it invites us to sit with this discomfort, and reflect further on what we read.

The novel ends on a note of hope, of collection action finally being taken, of triumph laced with dread. We know enough of how the world really works to believe that the story will end happily for all the characters we've come to love. Yet we at least have this scene, where they are fighting back and making themselves heard. And while that can never be enough, it's something, and it will spark something more.

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Thanks to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

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My review will go live on my blog on Monday, August 24, at 8 AM ET.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez is one of my favourite books I've read this year and one that will stick with me for a long time. I know my review will not be able to do justice to all the things this book made me think and feel, but I'll give it my best shot!

Crosshairs is a dystopian story set in a near future in Toronto, Canada where climate change disproportionately affects those in lower-income neighbourhoods, non-white people, disabled people, immigrants, refugees, and members of the LGBTQ2S community. This sparks the Canadian government to sanction an oppressive regime, the Renovation, which uses military police to round up these ‘Others’, forcing them into work houses-cum-concentration camps. The government's discrimination, control and genocide of the Others is hidden behind a vision of providing housing, jobs, peace and economic prosperity.

I loved that this story was set in Canada, because all too often we Canadians believe racism is an American problem or claim that it either isn’t as bad over here or doesn't exist at all, which is obviously not true. Crosshairs opened my eyes to the racism that persists in Toronto and Canada as a whole, and where this could lead if we continue to sweep it under the rug. This book was disturbing in many ways, but most terrifying for me was how easy it was to see the steps that led to the regime, how they justified what they were doing and hid behind visions for a ‘brighter’ future. We need only look to history to see that this has happened again and again.

I loved the characters in this book - Key, Firuzeh, Bahadur - and how Hernandez showed the many different ways they and others coped, either by fighting, by hiding or by refusing to live in a world in which they could not be their authentic selves. There was no right or wrong, only the individual and their unique philosophy and ability to cope. I also liked how Hernandez used the white characters, Liz, Beck and his family, as blueprints to demonstrate how we should work to challenge the institutional racism we've grown up with, step aside and uplift the voices of the oppressed in a way that's not performative.

Raw, beautiful, challenging, compelling - this book is a must-read and could not be more timely. Look for it in December 2020!

“It was clear as day what we marched for. We marched because we deserved to live”

I’m going to try my best to explain my feelings about this book, and I know it’s cliche to say, but this book truly left me speechless.

In this story, we are reading from the perspective a black queer Jamaican Filipino drag queen named Kay in a dystopian future where minorities and marginalized groups are deemed as “Others”. Under a government-sanctioned regime called “the Boots”, Others are gathered up and placed into forced labor camps and basically get their human rights revoked due to their skin color, sexuality, disability, nationality, etc. Kay and many Others who were not initially captured have been in hiding and on the run ever since, trying to survive as best they can with the help of certain allies and undercover “Boots”.

I will include trigger warnings at the bottom of this because this book contains very graphic scenes and imagery that could be dangerous to some people. I was kind of in shock reading these scenes but they definitely were necessary to truly showcase the trauma that these characters go through. The writing in this book is very powerful. I was brought to tears multiple times reading this because of how raw and real these characters felt to me. The amount of perspectives showcased and how they were brought together was really just something very special and very well done.

As a white gay man, I have not experienced oppression in any way that has affected my everyday life. Like it is mentioned in this book, I am able to put on the mask of “straightness” and feel safe walking down the street at night. For a lot of people, they don’t get that privilege, which is why we as white people need to constantly be educating ourselves and standing up to oppressive policies and actions that happen against minorities and marginalized groups of people. I feel that this book does a PERFECT job at explaining why this is so important and I implore every white person, LGBT+ or straight, to read this book when it comes out.

“When I do not act, I am complicit! When I know wrong is happening, I act! When the oppressed tell me I am wrong, I open my heart and change! When change is led by the oppressed, I move aside and uplift”

Trigger warnings: racial and lgbt+ slurs, deadnaming, pedophelia and sexual assault of a child, violence, labor camps, torture, loss of loved ones, grief, and forced sterilization (happens off page).

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Crosshairs creates a near-future dystopian Toronto, in which a heavily US-allied government builds a military apartheid state. It's an intriguing idea, and some of the best bits are brilliant, but there are several heavy-handed bits filled with theatrical dialogue that didn't fit with the general realism of the rest of the book (many of the flashbacks come along with specific Toronto-area references - real intersections, theatre companies, book shops - that ground the story's past in a realistic version the current day, so we're set-up to expect a certain level of realism).

The outstanding parts include a section in which a character learns to use firearms that are interspersed with flashbacks to that same character being tutored on the art of drag performance. It's an evocative section that works brilliantly to feed us both plot and character information. There's a scene later involving poultry that's so well-rendered that you can almost smell it.

But on the flip side, there's a passage in that same third of the book in which another character has a conversation about performative allyship with his mother that's so overly dramatic that it reads like a parody of an HR-run sensitivity class. That conversation is bookended by shorter versions of the same discussion at other points in the story, both of which read more like theatre dialogue than natural dialogue.

This is a minor spoiler for the fate of a tertiary character, but to see this particular trope/stereotype play out in a book that's otherwise so careful with identity and demographic stereotypes seems worth mentioning: We're told multiple times that the regime came for the elderly and disabled first. We're given a scene of main characters seeing a stack of mobility devices with no owners around. And yet the only disabled character we get to know in any depth the text (a Deaf character) commits suicide. Considering the thought that was clearly given to matters of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, having such a common negative trope applied in that way seemed note-worthy in context.

Some disappointments aside, it's excellent to see more Canadian fiction that explores this kind of mixture of social commentary and speculative fiction, so I'm pleased to have read it.

This is probably the most challenging review I’ve written. I’ve started, deleted, and stared again many times. What can I say to pursued you of the importance of Crosshairs? What words can I weave together to convince you to read this haunting and eloquent portrayal of a future where communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ are rounded up and sent to labor camps?

Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you’re sick of politics and revolutions and protests. Maybe you’ve closed yourself off to the debate about privilege because you donate to BlackLivesMatter and put a black square on your Instagram page, and now you just want life to return to normal.

If so, this book is for you.

Maybe you’re defeated. Maybe you’ve watched the police brutality and cried into the palms of your hands and prayed for a better world and begged, begged, begged God to keep you safe and your brother safe and your father safe when you’re driving in your car or going for a jog or sleeping in your house.

If so, this book is for you.

Maybe you’re on fire. Maybe your shoes are worn from marching and your voice is sore from shouting and your eyes are burning from tear gas and your wrists are sore from the zip ties. And you are done. So very done with the way things are.

If so, this book is for you.

Here is the opening:

To the people of privilege,

You will survive your discomfort while reading this book.

But many like me, who sit dangerously at

various intersections of identity

Will not survive long enough for you

Complete the last page

What will you do?

Catherine Hernandez has woven a world where the most vulnerable in society are captured, sent to labor camps and killed. Our hero is Kay, a drag queen who goes into hiding as a near-future Canada crumbles. It happens slowly and then snowballs into every trigger warning you can imagine. Hernandez doesn’t hold back. Her style is startling and lyrical, filled with rage, passion, and a tiny sliver of hope that keeps the characters pushing forward. She forces you to stew in your privilege and reflect on your role in an oppressive government. There is a montra throughout the book, spoken by the allies to remember their role in the resistance:

When I do not act, I am complicit!

When I know wrong is happening, I act!

When the oppressed tell me I am wrong, I open my hear and change!

When change is led by the oppressed, I move aside and uplift!

This should be required reading.*

Read this book. Absorb this book. Let yourself feel the discomfort.

*Please note, I read this book on my Kindle App so there are no page numbers. This passage is prevalent through the second half of the book.

This book about a dystopian Canada feels worryingly close to our reality. The systematic racism is very disheartening but eerily similar to the issues that the world has been facing and is now highlighting due to the George Floyd protests. The treatment of other minority groups such as indigenous people and the LGBTQ+ really give the reader something to think about as well.

On the surface, this book hit all my marks: stunning cover, striking premise, and scarily-prescient themes. I was thrilled to be approved for this title.

Following massive Canadian floods, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots sparks "The Renovation," a horrifying time where The Others (LGBTQ+, disabled, and communities of color) are rounded up and forced into labor camps. Kay, a former drag queen, joins the resistance, and in a gripping narrative, writes a letter to her lost love as he trains for revolution.

I don't even know where to begin with this book; there are so many things I want to say.

First, Hernandez's writing style is beautiful. Her prose is lyrical and flows and often reads like spoken word poetry without even trying. Her structure of dual timelines, both past (told through flashbacks) and present, juxtaposed against each other drew out the symbolism of each moment, creating raw, powerful emotion that poured from every word. This is my first Hernandez read, but I was smitten with the writing and finished this in two sittings.

Issues-driven, character-driven, and plot-driven, Kay is a magnificent narrator with insightful command of memories and his journey to self-discovery. Liv, Bahadur, Beck, and Firuzeh are also wonderful, and I appreciated Hernandez giving space for each character to tell his/her/their own story. It's not a coincidence that there is room for every voice; even with a revolution, even with the horrors, everyone deserves to be heard, and Hernandez weaves these voices with bold honesty and stark truths.

This book is more than just beautifully-written words, though. So much more. Crosshairs could've been ripped from the headlines (apparently I keep picking books that reflect the current society instead of escapist lit). From labeling and discrimination to the terrifying realization that the events Kay describes seem not only real but possible, I wanted to scream by the end. Its warning is grim, dire, and enlightening. There will be disturbing imagery, anecdotes that are hard to read yet impossible to ignore. From the notes in the beginning, Hernandez says for some, this book will be uncomfortable, and I had that in mind as I reflected on the characters' interactions in relation to current events. Performative justice is a topic that stands out, especially given the prevalence of social media. How people who are not The Others can pick and choose when and what trivial act to post, receive praise for their good deeds, but when push comes to shove and their comforts are threatened, they turn their backs. If anything, this book will make you acutely aware of shortcomings and biases and that is such an important freaking awareness to have right now. We want to be allies, to have allies, but we also need to teach people how to be allies, and that's more than just a motivational quote during Black History Month or a black square Instagram day of silence.

Overall, Crosshairs is a lyrical, urgent, beautiful story of pain, injustice, and hope. This is the type of text everyone should read.

Big thanks to Atria and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

A note: this book contains many potentially triggering words and themes, including racial and queer slurs, genocide, oppression, hate crimes, graphic violence and significant trauma. It's a heavy hitting book, but it feels right for these times; like the author has pulled off the kid gloves and is ready to let you see the true reality of what it could be like to be inside an intersectional and oppressed existence. I, as some other readers have reflected, would like to see some #ownvoices reviews about this book; I believe the author does an excellent job displaying not only intersectionality but also successful allyship, but as a non-Black person of color, I am curious as to Hernandez's choice to make Kay a Jamaican Filipino character.

Crosshairs is a "dystopian" book - I put dystopian in quotations because, truly, it's not SO far removed from our reality. Crosshairs is set in Toronto, and centers around a Black drag queen named Kay, and Kay's attempts to escape from and live under a deeply fascist government. There is strong character work throughout the story, and the relationships provide a dose of levity and heart amidst the darkness; Hernandez is artful at portraying how conversations between friends can feel so normal even during chaos.

I would recommend this book, with the caveat that I think it's best to know what you are getting into; not your average escapist sci-fi or fantasy read.