Oh what a truly brilliant book.

A dear friend recommended this story to me and I have never been more thankful. Audition is a masterpiece, one that isn't just smart and beautifully written but also unsettling, funny, deeply emotional, and somehow full of plot twist?
The journey Audition takes you on is one of discomfort. Every time you think you've figured out what's going on and what it is about, it pulls the rug from under you and reinvents itself so that you see the characters and their story in a whole new light. It blew my mind so many times I had to put the book down to reconsider everything I thought it was and still, I surely haven't fully grasped it all.
That will come after a second or third reading, if I'm lucky.

I simply cannot wait to get a physical copy so I can take notes and highlight stuff.


Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada (Adult) | Strange Light for the opportunity to read this ARC. The Canadian edition of this book comes out in June 2025.

I had high hopes for this title given the intersecting of literary, queer, and Sci-Fi genres. Although I enjoyed aspects of this book, I didn't make it farther than halfway through. I deeply respect the complex themes that the author was trying to juggle, though ultimately this book was not effective for me. I also had a hard time imagining to whom I might recommend this title. It was a fever dream literary title that primarily deals with the nature of performance and incarceration. A very cool concept that felt really inaccessible to the average reader. I am sure it has an audience out there, sadly it wasn't for me.