Author: Ada Hoffman
Genre: Adult fiction, dystopian fiction, romance, queer lit, BIPOC rep, heist fiction, pirates (although de-emphasised)
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Format: Ebook (NetGalley Copy)
Release Date: May 12th, 2026
TW: ableism, arson, suicide (teenager, discussed, not depicted on page) homophobia, transphobia (societal)
I encourage you to look at reviews by Autistic and ADHD reviewers, as I am (as far as I know) neurotypical, even though I live with an AuDHD partner.
This book stuck with me, and its prescience is something that I hope will come top pass, even if the main character often made me frustrated.
Kelli is one of the 10 percent of people who still have a job. She works for Inspiration as a script editor and AI prompter, where she makes sure that her show (Ship of Fools) and it's main character (Orlando) follows company guidelines, and that her own creativity doesn't contrast with the AI scripting too much. Inspiration's shows are basic, shallow and flat, made to be as marketable as possible to a common mean, and Kelli sometimes does struggle to reign herself in, even when she always follows the rules. When she takes a call from her former partner and current pirate (smuggler), Rowan (a trans man), this careful routine is destroyed. Rowan is in trouble, and Kelli is the only one who can help him. Her task is simple: Talk to a superfan of the show, and Rowan gets out of debt with the fan's mob boss mother. But of course, nothing is that simple. When she;'s drafted into stealing her own work from her company; she must make a choice. Will Kelli be able to make it out of this in one piece? Will she ever sort out her feelings for Rowan?
This is primarily a character drama, with the heist taking a distant second, as the ostensible driver of the plot. The characters were very vivid, even painfully so. The third person POV follows Kelly and Kelly and Rowan/AM as children. There are also points where there are written prompts from Kelly's point of view. So, I do like that you get a portrait of both characters that is incredibly detailed. I hated Kelly as a character, but I really understood her. Kelly is a pathological rule follower, incredibly naive, but also has a strong sense of justice. So when she immediately tries to turn Rowan in, I hated her for it. However. I understood why she tried to turn Rowan in, and because of the intimate POV, there was no choice but to sympathize with her. I also did aside from the POV, as it was very clear that Kelli was raised by a robot who taught her the most basic and milquetoast ways to interact socially. If you can stick with her, the ending is worth it.
Rowan is the other half of this duo, and I love him. He very clearly has ADHD, even if his parents don't want to label it and as Am, was the first person to really break Kelli's shell. I enjoyed reading about his coming of age journey, and also, seeing how deep his friendship went with Kelli. When you finally learn what tore the two apart, it is devastating. I also appreciate that through him we see how queerness is suppressed (you can't talk about it for fear of influencing the youth/complicating a simple algorithmically fed society, but are 'allowed' to be queer in private) and how he hacks the system. He was a bit of a scoundrel as well, and later in the book, you see why. I was rooting for him from the get-go.
The side characters were also compelling, and you could tell that they had their own problems and reasons for joining the heist. (I really liked the representation in this group of side characters as well.) The representation was also well researched, and realistic.
Aside from the characters, the worldbuilding was serviceable, and somewhat realistic. Kelli lives on Callisto, and travels in a ship to other places, and the nitty-gritty of space travel isn't glossed over. It was a great backdrop to a story of self discovery. The heist was also serviceable, but definitely did take a backseat to the character's lives.
All in all, despite the fact that I didn't enjoy the main character, I really enjoyed and appreciated this book. If you want a queer space romp with great representation, I'd say go for it. It was a great read.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
Final Rating: 4.5 (rounded up to 5) out of 5 stars
Drink paring: Young darjeeling for queer love resparked (maybe)
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