Felt very 'Be gay, do crime, no plot', though the level of crime strictly involved was unclear given that the party is hired by the government, and the plot did come together a bit in the back 25%. Unfortunately this generally wasn't for me, but I will say it's a very cool entry into the subgenre of alternate history. The concept was full vibes, and vibes were delivered. Folks looking for a somewhat saccharine character-driven queer voicey genre romp will enjoy this, as will readers looking for normative, if superficial, racial diversity and queer rep in an ensemble cast.

This seemed like a case where a whole book was invented to support a single scene/image/concept, This image arose near the end of the book, leading to an 'aha' moment and making me glad I didn't DNF as I dearly wanted to at the 70% mark. What came before was a series of character (or caricature) vignettes, a romance that didn't stick the landing, and worldbuilding that, mm, I just wanted more from. Maybe I missed such explanations in the text, but if hippos are slow, deadly, and require massive resources, why have they replaced horses? The thing about alternate histories is that they have to... be justified? What happened to horses? Never mind. Suspend disbelief. In 1890 Louisiana, folks ride slow, deadly, resource-heavy hippos for terrain reasons. Where's the showdown with the crocodile riders of Florida? Missed potential.

Comparisons to Ocean's Eleven make sense. It's a gay heist, as is Ocean's Eleven (shan't be taking questions). It's an ensemble cast, to its detriment. I wanted at most four characters, ideally three. Two would've been fine. I felt strongly throughout that this could have been a fantastic, heavy-hitting short story if it had been ruthlessly trimmed down to the plot beats that actually existed. Realistically it had at most a novelette's worth of material.

I mentioned vibes before, and I'll mention them again: I don't think it's enough of a book if the heist part of the gay heist doesn't actually get underway until the last 30%. The rest is character interactions: some of it romantic, some of it betrayal, some of it... overly saccharine? We are, fundamentally, watching good people motivated, at the end, by doing the right thing. This annoyed me. Throw in that they are technically doing this job for the government and it didn't feel like a gay heist. It felt like a DnD party full of legitimate businesspeople hanging out on a casino boat waiting for their first job to be assigned to them by the local sheriff, who by the way is a good guy. And that was just the back half of the book. Where was the moral ambiguity? Like, there was some; but are these outlaws or nah? They fall in love and make friends along the way. Honestly, now. Not nearly enough people died.

I wanted the hippo heist to go significantly more backward than it did and for absolutely everyone to die grinning, bloodied, and having enjoyed a hell of a ride. People's actions become motivated purely by their affection for another person in the party in this book. It's a revenge plot, but they like, stop to banter while doing revenge? And the banter ruins the revenge? Hello? Stop quipping! Explode things faster! Stab better! If you're going to have a witty one-liner, commit your heinous acts first and THEN do the line! I know the normative diversity was the point of the book and that it wasn't necessarily meant to reflect the reality of 1890s Louisiana; this book is pretty camp on purpose. But by God I wish more had been made of the difficulties a bunch of Black and queer hippo riders might've had with the law in a heist book, instead of finding love in a time of hippos. I wish there had been politics anywhere in the book.

The book did deliver vibes; but for me the vibes were off. It was pure premise. The characterization leaned to caricature, but owing to campiness, I was way more inclined to forgive this. It's heavily genre. It's a Southern Western. It reminded me in ways of Our Flag Means Death, a show with which I also do not vibe, purely from the "what if an English peer kissed Blackbeard and Spanish Jackie was there" kind of vibrations. We're here for archetypes to get rowdy together in ambiance. Hypothetically, I'm down for that. But it seems important, if you're going to rely on archetypes, to give characters archetype-appropriate motivations in the plot. Again the lack of politics - of character values - creating problems, and blunting the campy joy.

I'm trying to say the romance really, really didn't work for me, and I think it shot down any chance this book had to do something interesting with its incredibly fascinating premise. The conceit was there; the voice was compelling; but the character-heavy front disappeared in the back, and the plot-heavy back wasn't supported by the front. Love and friendship became the moral in a book about deadly hippos and people who want revenge. Man... it's for someone. But I was sorely disappointed.

Nearly forgot to mention: someone literally says in dialogue there's only one bed. Someone else gives a shovel talk. I had to close the book both times. Put it away for a while. Went outside. Amazing how low my tolerance is for that stuff when it's SO blatant.

Needless to say I won't be moving on in the series, but it did identify a need in me for punchy genre heist stories. I will also definitely pick up from this author again - I really enjoyed The Echo Wife from Gailey last year, and the voice in this made me think I will have great success with their writing when romance isn't a factor.

A final note: a really significant number of reader reviews for this book are confused by one character's use of they/them pronouns. I'm not sure if this book came out before this was more normative in speculative fiction, but - though the anachronism seemed more in the interest of that normative diversity "vibe" than supporting anything significant to do with the character - it's just a nonbinary character! Don't be scared, guys. It's okay.