I recommend this book to people at work (at a book store). A coworker heard about it on TikTok, and while my tastes typically do not overlap with those of TikTok, it sounded good. And it was very good. Is markdown broken here? I'm trying to italicize "very".

It's difficult to describe without getting into spoilers -- which is a severe problem if markdown isn't working lol -- because so much of the content of the book is figuring out what the hell is even going on. Oh god, two asterisks delete themselves, too? help

There's not much one recommending can say besides the premise: the narrator is a girl in a prison, which takes the form of a cage in a large underground room, with 39 adult women, watched and fed by some male guards who never speak to them (iirc). All the other women were adults when they were abducted from their normal lives and placed into this cage; the narrator is the only one who was a young child when she was taken, so she, unlike everybody she knows, has never known men.

Then some interesting stuff happens and I just literally can't tell you any of it, but I assure you that the writing is great, the story is great, etc. It's not just a cool premise; it follows through. It also packs a strong emotional punch which without spoiler tags I cannot characterize. -- Having reread this paragraph I would like to add that there's a nice match between the style and the content. I just did not have any complaints while I was reading this book (besides the obvious complaint, which you'll know what I mean if you read it, but it's not a knock against it).

Not many books can I call "unique", and maybe it only speaks to the inadequacy of my longform fiction experience, but this book was unique and I'll never stop thinking about it.