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**Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Gabrielle Korn for an ARC of this book! Now available as of 12.5!**

Ava and Orchid believe their love is strong enough to transcend anything: space, time...and even a rapidly eroding climate. But in 2050, the third factor in this list has started to overtake all else, as their homebase of Brooklyn has passed dangerous and is quickly becoming uninhabitable. Billionaire and self-proclaimed visionary Jacqueline Millender has the possible answer to their problems: The Inside Project. In it, women (and only women, we soon come to find out) will live under a dome of sorts, protected from the unsafe air and the ugly ramifications of a world decimated by men...but just how HONORABLE are Jacqueline's intentions?

Shelby can hardly believe when Jacqueline reaches 0ut to HER to be her personal assistant, and jumps at the chance to be second in command to one of the world's most powerful and influential women. Olympia works on the medical side of the house, and she too is honored to work for Jacqueline at first...until Jacqueline's visions for her own personal progeny come to light, and Olympia begins to wonder exactly WHAT she has signed up for...and if it's too late to escape. As the three perspectives converge, all of the women in Jacqueline's 'orbit' come to one terrifying conclusion...but with the world literally crumbling around them, can they band together to work against the climate crisis? Is their little slice of paradise on the "Inside" really a paradise? Or are they simply cogs in a devastating machine, with wheels TOO far in motion to be stopped now?

This book is marketed as queer and dystopian, and in many respects, these descriptors are accurate. The MCs ARE entrenched in a lesbian relationship from the very beginning, but the book quickly becomes less of a true love story and more of a semi-thesis on the pros and cons of a man-free society, with a disjointed and at times eye-roll worthy plot that tried to tread a LOT of ground...and ended up simply dancing around ideas instead. We bounce from the climate issues, to the pros and cons of 'traditional' feminism, queer relationships, men and the patriarchy and more...but Korn never gives ANY of these ideas full credence and room to breathe...and subsequently, the book suffers because of it.

This is also supposedly adult fiction...but it reads INCREDIBLY YA to the point where I actually stopped and looked it up at one point to confirm that this wasn't the case. The "women" in the book read more like teenage girls, with bubbling insecurities, wanton lust, and a lack of focus and determination you'd expect from much younger people. This became especially difficult when some of the characters had children of their own...and once said women hit their teens/twenties, it became even harder to tell them apart from their parents, who were theoretically FAR older (at least, I hope so 😬).

Which brings me to another one of the book's issues...a timeline that never seemed to end. By the end of the book, some of the characters are literally OLD WOMEN and they certainly did not start off with their AARP cards in hand. With characters who gave me such minimal emotional investment, especially, I did not need to see their lives progress over such a LONG period of time, and it made a plot that already felt slow become interminable. I also am not a fan of timeline jumps in general unless they a) make sense and b) are easy to follow, and in this case? I'm sad to say BOTH boxes were marked.

To cap it off, one of the most distracting and odd things about this book was the dialogue. It felt cheesy, unnatural, and often felt like an info dump about different characters and their motivations. Over and over again we were told WHAT to think about characters rather than being inspired to feel something about them and form a unique opinion as a reader having an individual reading experience. One character in particular is SO one dimensional that by the end, I started to roll my eyes each time they popped up in the narrative: in the words of Radiohead, there were No Surprises here.

Nevertheless, there ARE some interesting concepts and theses buried under a subpar plot and overshadowed by lackluster characters here. If you want to go down the rabbit hole of your own thoughts and speculation about the dystopian picture Korn paints, and the pitfalls of a women-only society...this is your book. For me, however, the only thing that felt like it was MINE for the taking was a generous helping of disappointment.

3 stars, rounded up from 2.5