Core curriculum. It’s urgent about what it is and really uninterested in pretending to be anything else. The main character is on-brand in dismissing Joyce as patriarchy, and yet the book’s got exactly the same arc as Ulysses: building up expectations for a surrogate filial relationship that finally converges, sadly, in a deflationary missed connection.
(Also, why is it so funny that the book’s Joyce booster is a manic trans guy named Kieran? It’s just funny.)
The afterword, on what Binnie learned/received permission to do from Joanna Russ, Gloria Anzaldúa and others, is an actual inspiration.