Some Desperate Glory

This has a whole bunch of elements that i loved, but mostly a great plot and clear character arc. At the start of the book, Kyr is an about-to-graduate cadet on a asteroid bound space station that houses the last few thousands of humanity after an alien civilization has destroyed Earth.

Things are not as they seem, which Kyr finds out by getting assigned to Nursery to bear children for humanity, despite her top scores, and her brother refusing assignment and deserting.

A word of warning that there's some intense cult-like abuse in the pages.

I read this on the recommendation of @charliejane@wandering.shop in her Washington Post column on SF. You should read her columns too.

www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/05/08/nick-harkaway-bina-shah-moniquill-blackgoose/

This book really stuck with me after reading it. I had to stop reading it before bed because I would stay up too late reading it, which is a trait I cherish in a book and is also hard to pull off in a book with such heavy themes -- brainwashing, abuse, reproductive coercion, war,.... And the characters were so well articulated. I really live for books where characters seem like actual humans who are capable of being really truly horrible to each other and also capable of kindness and growth.