"Hernandez's novel brings Toronto, as it is known by its Queer Black, Brown and Indigenous residents, to life. A rare and wonderful and formidable feat." - Toronto Star
"Using the best tricks of storytelling, Hernandez gives us the whole world — its past, its present, and what we hope will be its future."
-
Hamilton Review of Books“Rooted from within the worldview and place it portrays, Scarborough is an intimate portrait of a community with all its nuances and desires deftly captured ... Brick by brick, life by life, Scarborough delivers an orchestral impact, one small, beautiful voice at a time.” - Jury Citation, Toronto Book Awards
“In her dexterous debut, Catherine Hernandez powerfully centres the margins by interlacing narratives that spotlight the beauty that thrives beyond the big city." - Vivek Shraya, author of I’m Afraid of Men
“Scarborough marks the arrival of a fierce new voice in Canadian fiction. Hernandez has rendered one of the most vibrant portraits of contemporary suburbia I've yet encountered.” - Jordan Tannahill, author of Liminal
“Scarborough is raw yet beautiful, disturbing yet hopeful ... it also gives voice to people whose stories are often unheard, making this an important book that deserves a wide audience.” - Booklist
"Hernandez’s voice and writing style lay vivid on the page, and her craft is evident from the jump. . . .Hernandez is a talent undeniable. She’s an evocative, vibrant writer whose voice and point of view are an exciting addition to the literary landscape." - USA Today
"Hernandez’s prose style is gorgeously poetic. . . .Kay is a brilliantly nuanced, fully formed character, both tender and brave, so identifying with him is easy." - BookPage
“Catherine Hernandez is ground-breaking. Her talent is remarkable. I dare you not to cry or scream or marvel or, like me, do all at once while reading this book. This story is a masterpiece of voice and metaphor, image and embodiment. But it is also a perfectly crafted portrait of us now, of us then, of the us we hope to be. I love Catherine Hernandez—her heart, her immense presence, her endless grace and her capacity for depth and light. And I love this book, this big, bright missive that not only breaks the ground, but that gifts us with the steps to take in order to get to the other side, together.” - Cherie Dimaline, bestselling author of The Marrow Thieves and Empire of Wild
“Crosshairs is a blistering page-turner. One can describe it as dystopic fiction, but Catherine Hernandez is presenting us with something much more prescient to consider. The novel acts as a provocation and a challenge for readers to locate themselves. Crosshairs offers a glance into a world that is possible if we continue on a trajectory that is frightfully present. Most importantly, Crosshairs asks us what we will do to resist and build a better future when faced with such momentous and dangerous times.” - Carrianne Leung, award-winning author of That Time I Loved You
“In Crosshairs, Catherine Hernandez shapes a world at once fantastical and familiar, remarkable and relatable. . . .The result is a sparkling but devastating novel about corporate and state cruelty, individual as well as community sacrifice, and queer Black and Brown kinship that must be protected at all costs. Timely, unapologetic, complicated.” - Jenny Heijun Wills, award-winning author of Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related
“A beautiful, unapologetic, and unwatered-down burst of fury against cis white supremacy and tyrannical power systems, centered around a main cast that must be fiercely protected. Hernandez writes the best kind of dystopian story, one that holds a sobering mirror up to our own world. Let this book haunt you.” - Marie Lu, New York Times bestselling author of the Legend Series
"Crosshairs is both unnervingly prescient and undeniably profound. A harrowing work that's as much a battle cry as a ballad for the erased, and we should all be listening." - V.E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of A Darker Shade of Magic
"Hernandez delivers beautiful and heartbreaking scenes in a story that is hard especially because of how close it feels to our present." - Booklist
“Hernandez goes deeper than most writers dare when it comes to the complexities of racial and cultural violences, unafraid to unpack the explicit and implicit prejudices that inform her characters' behaviours, white and racialized alike ... This is a crucial book for Toronto, and a shining example for writers concerned with the cultural tensions of the now." - Broken Pencil
"[Scarborough] is a town coloured by its people, brutal when it’s rough, comfortably home when it feels like it or when it doesn’t. And this is a story on the reckoning of privilege and the acceptance of difference." - The National Post
“An engrossing read ... Hernandez sets us running down that subway corridor, anxious for what comes around the next corner. Heartbreak, to be sure. But also unexpected joys and big lessons. Highly recommended.” - Out in Print
“[Scarborough is] a celebration of community, a sensitive and compassionate portrayal of how lives are irrevocably changed, moment by moment, through small acts of kindness or cruelty. It’s a novel that deserves to be read widely.” - Hamilton Review of Books
- Finalist for the City of Toronto Book Awards 2017
- Finalist for the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award 2018
- Finalist for the Half the World Global Literary Award 2017
- Finalist for the Trillium Award
- Finalist, Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Evergreen Award 2018
- Longlisted for Canada Reads 2018
- A Globe & Mail, National Post, and Quill & Quire Best Book of the Year
- A Top Ten Audible Book 2017
- A CBC Books Writer to Watch 2017
- Queen's Reads Selection 2018
- AWARDS FOR SCARBOROUGH
“Crosshairs made me shiver. It troubled my dreams. Still, I could not put down this dystopia. It was utterly compelling. Catherine Hernandez prophesies Canadian genocide against queer, Black, brown and Indigenous folks. At the same time, she inspires the reader with her depiction of a resistance full of characters who—even in the face of hatred and complacency—show love, pride, endurance, courage and who insist on living to the very last breath.” - Lawrence Hill, bestselling author of The Illegal and The Book of Negroes
