Spoiler alerts for the story below
First of all HOLY FREAKING COW THIS IS SO GOOD AHHHHHH LITERALLY CHANGED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY IN REAL TIME I WAS GASPING IN SHOCK AND LITERALLY GLUED TO THE SCREEN OMG
Ok shouting aside, I love the formatting, how it's the same story told from 9 different POVs, and how each girl's thoughts and background displayed in their section. At first I thought that it was Cox who was the only trans girl on the team, but turns out that she was the reason that the whole giant monster squid attacked, and the supernatural aspect just makes the whole story so much better. Like technically this story could be read in any order, but I waited until I read 1-8 until I read Cox and SUDDENLY things started to make sense and I was like OH MY GOD SO THAT'S WHY
Also I loved how none of the girls were two-dimensional, including the terfs. At first, when I read the story from 2's POV, I hated 3 and 5, but when I read their POVs, I still hated them, but at I understood why they acted the way they did. And also 4's fears and doubts about not belonging in the team, about how her and 3's thoughts mirrored each other. Made everything hit so much harder
Holy cow there's so many layers to this I could talk this for days. The interactions with each other, how there are things that some girls noticed that other girls didn't, how their different personalities and backgrounds all led them to the same rowing team in college, how the many mentions of the transphobe protestors and twitter and online hate made it feel like there was a whole world outside the story (which is extremely like our world, unfortunately)
like how did you do this??? Like there's so much contained in this stand-alone that there's so much to go off of ahhhhh it's so amazing
Last thing: I love the cover art, how it looks yonic, and the tentacles connecting to each of the paddles and how the tip of the boat reminds me of the Jaws movie poster
Ok peace out I need a few more days to fully absorb this into my skull