Some books get better upon a reread. But when you’re rereading your favorite book, how could it possibly get better? Well, let me tell you the ways.

In my first read, I was so enraptured with the dystopian whimsy of Qannaaq that I didn’t get a chance to dwell in many of the other levels. The specific way the world fell apart to create this near-future has not as much to do with climate change as much as it does with manufactured inequality and the evils of landlords and apartment economics. Being from New York City and seeing the story of how the stockholders gained power, the parallels were so easy to spot.

I’ve changed myself in the two years since I read this book, and wow, SOQ’s POV hit me differently upon reexamination. They are just so unapologetically themselves, but there’s a drive for human connection and fixing your own circumstances that are quite universal. The misfortune in the middle of the second act strikes a bit differently. Finding new appreciation for different facets is just part of the rereading experience.

Beautiful prose in a bleak cold comes a tale of finding family and standing up to the forces which broke the world in the first place.