"Better to drown as myself than to breathe the air of someone else’s life and drown all the same."

Horror isn’t typically my genre of choice, but THIS book? Holy sh!t!
The story follows Mars, a nonbinary gender fluid teen from a weathly political family. The book starts with the death of Mar's twin sister, Caroline. And that opening scene had me hooked!
Mars decides that to solve the mystery of Caroline's death (and to reconnect with her life), Mars will finish out the summer at the camp Caroline ran away from. Aspen is an elite camp that holds its own trauma for Mars, since everything there is gendered and they frown upon breaking stereotypes. As Mars unravels one mystery, three more twists occur, all centered around an insular group of girls known as The Honeys (named after the bees they care for at camp). That's as much as I'll say about the plot to avoid spoilers!
The prose in this book is stunning. The way the author used repeated phrasing and descriptive settings kept me rapt. The social commentary comparing humans to the hive mindset of bees was also thought-provoking and true. And I honestly didn't anticipate that ending!
The audiobook won the 2023 Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production, and it's easy to see why. Beautifully narrated by Pete Cross, it also had subtle sounds and music to help convey the mood. The first time I heard bees buzzing I had to look around to make sure I wasn't near a hive!