This book was fantastic. Searingly philosophical in a very essential way, it manages to do so much in such a short space/time. 

The narrator is a Black British woman who has risen to the top of her financial field. She's very wealthy in her own right, and is dating a man who is probably somewhere in the aristocracy, certainly old white money. In the short space of the novella, he goes from 'the boyfriend' to 'the son' as she pulls further away from him and into her diagnosis.

Yes, she has just been diagnosed with advanced cancer. We aren't given details, other than her doctor is planning an aggressive treatment. She doesn't tell anyone, and seriously considers just . . . not. Not fighting, bc what does she really have to fight for? So, content warning for circuitous suicidal thoughts. (I saw some review that claimed those thoughts were disrespectful to people fighting cancer. And . . . I absolutely cannot with that sort of logic. Literature and stories are where we can try out thoughts and explore things. And we don't end the book with her irrevocably making the decision to NOT pursue treatment.)

But that is also missing the ENTIRE POINT of likening the cancerous cells in her body to the cancer that is white privilege. And she is probably best able to speak about that, bc she has been very very close to many forms of white privilege. Her co-workers who view her with suspicion and think she should be happy to share a promotion with a white upper class man who 'needs this for his family'. Her best friend who can fuck up and fail and shrug and go on and isn't held to anything like the same standards our narrator must maintain or be ostracized. Her boyfriend who takes the family estate and lands as his birthright and not something that has been passed down with blood-covered hands. White privilege that begets yet and yet more privilege further and further removed from anyone who's done anything to earn it, and those things and the 'earning' were done on the backs of everyone else. 

This book is INCISIVE. It cuts DEEP. And I recommend it to everyone. It's short and not at all sweet.