Laek is a man with a difficult past living in New York in an alternate America — the United America — where the city is more a police state than anything else. Raped by a police officer during a traffic stop, Laek suffers from nightmares, but still decides to go to a protest, only to be badly beaten by the police and end up spending the summer in the hospital. When he’s finally well enough to go home, Laek leaves with a plan. He can’t stay in the United America, so he’s taking his family north to Canada.

Previously published in 2014 as Cycling to Asylum, Invisible Line is a story about the horrors of police violence in America, the sanity of Canada and its kind police force, and one man’s life of abuse and trauma. It’s a book where I struggled for two main reasons. One, the simplistic moralizing of America = bad. In United America, cops are awful, horrible, violent bullies who hurt people. But Canada’s cops are kind, respectful, and serve their community. This isn’t a book that seems to want to deal with issues like police violence, racial profiling, or immigration. Instead, it just presents America as a dumpster fire and Canada as a utopia with a lot of bike paths. This book creates a world of black and white, with no nuance and no consequences. Bad people on this side of the line, good people on that, and it’s so simplistic, almost offensively so.

The second issue is an underage Laek constantly being raped by parental figures, cops, and guardians. All this is mentioned with seemingly no desire to talk about rape, the suffering of the survivors, or how rape shapes their lives. It also doesn’t show enough concern when a woman is sleeping with a much younger teenage boy, as if that was okay, and I disagree heartily with that sentiment.

Laek was born in a cult, and it’s heavily implied he was molested by one of the male authority figures. He then escapes at fourteen to an anarchist group — focusing on disruption, destroying machinery, and hacking into files and posting them online — and when he’s fifteen, the group is arrested. Laek then spends half a year being tortured, waterboarded, and raped. He is finally let go and finds friends to stay with. That group is then captured, but Laek escapes and is given a new ID and a new life, which he lives for sixteen years, until the aforementioned traffic stop and rape.

Laek feels like he exists in this book solely as a victim. From page one to the end, he is helpless and reliant on other people to to take care of him and to handle difficult situations for him— even his 12-year-old daughter. And I can understand that Laek has had a hard life and deserves compassion and kindness. But given how heavy handed these scenes were, and so reliant on telling and telling and telling, it was hard to feel anything for Laek. For all that I was indifferent to Laek as a character, the author did take pains to write him as a good parent … for the most part. It’s heavily implied that wife does almost all the cooking, that she’s the one there for the hard talks, and Laek feels so absent due to his own trauma.

While there is much focus on Laek being raped, there is other sexual abuse that feels glossed over. When he is 16, an adult woman sleeps with Laek, but only once, because he’s too young. There is also Laek and his current partner, Janie, who as an undergrad around twenty, finds the homeless and sixteen-year-old Laek and takes him in. They begin a romantic relationship and, by 19, Laek is a father. Neither Janie nor the nameless woman who slept with him are framed as predators, while all of the men who raped Laek are. To be fair, all of those mentioned experiences with men seem to have been violent, while Janie and the unnamed woman were more voluntary, but still. A grown woman taking advantage of a traumatized sixteen-year old is … not good.

This book is so set on that messaging that it didn’t really have a story to support it, and the story didn’t have a world for its characters to live in. I’d call the book preachy if it had a sermon to give, but it doesn’t. There’s no theme and no plot, and it’s hard to find a real purpose. The fixation on Laek and his multiple rapes made me uncomfortable. The writing left me bored. And I was so tempted to DNF this book at so many points, but I kept going because this book was nominated for two awards and I had hopes the ending might have something to say, and in a sense it did: Let saving the world be someone else’s problem. That’s, in essence, Laek’s final thought.

Trigger warnings for: police violence, rape, water boarding, public sex (having sex in a public park while their children play in the distance), child sexual assault, kidnapping, suicidal ideation

This explores relevant and important topics on a very human level: not through major political upheavals or conflicts, but through the everyday experience of one family. Narrated by all four family members, each with a unique and touching voice, it draws you into their lives and makes the wider social picture impactful and urgent. It's slow-paced, focusing on emotional depth over action, and it delivers that in spades. Dark, gritty, and ultimately hopeful.

What a chaotic ride this story was. While it wasn’t my favourite, I will say that it kept my attention until the very end.

This story is told in four points of view including both parents and their two children as the family flees persecution in New York by moving to Montreal on bicycle. Each point of view was distinct and added layers to the story which is one of its strengths.

I think my major dislike about this book was that, as important as these stories are in today’s political climate, we were supposed to just take Laek and Janie’s word for it that the government was bad. It felt as if the author relied on the current state of the world to fill in the blanks about why any of the events of the story need to take place. Perhaps if the story was told entirely through the children’s eyes it would have made sense why we were being kept in the dark, but unfortunately it came across as poor world building. I think being more explicit about what happened for things to get as bad as they were and including more context of Laek and Janie’s history would have strengthened the narrative significantly.

Overall, I would not recommend this specific book but I think that it is important that we continue to read and write these stories of hope and struggle against oppression to the best of our ability.

Thank you to Flame Arrow Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC. All thoughts in this review are my own.

We follow a family of 4 through their remarkable trek on a bike from New York to Montreal in search of a hopefully better life. The book advances through their alternating POVs, but thankfully there is no redundancy. This was touching and very interesting. The most striking thing of all though was that this story touched on relatable points that are not so far fetched. These are things that we really could be battling in a not so distant future. Look at for example our big challenges with immigration - learning and adjusting to a new way of life has been a constant in society for decades. In the end, as this novel proves - love and perseverance almost always prevail. Very well written and developed!

Thank you Netgalley and Flame Arrow Publishing for giving me access to the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

content warnings: SA & CSA, police brutality, mental illness (esp. PTSD), violence, past trauma and torture

Firstly, I have to say that I will always appreciate media that tackles difficult topics such as identity, immigration, police brutality and state control; it's vital that stories dealing with these issues are celebrated and accessible to everyone. Unfortunately, I don't think that Invisible Line went far enough in its societal critique. Despite not enjoying the writing style, I liked the message in the first third of the book about corruption and the resistance against it. However, the rest of the novel fell flat. I felt that the plot jumped from one point to the next, without truly exploring the central issues the book was trying to portray, and sometimes there would be page after page of dialogue that added nothing to the story. Many conflicts and difficult situations were dealt with very quickly and didn't allow the reader to sit with the (often traumatic) things that just happened to one of the characters. Also, I didn't appreciate the message at the end that's basically "cops are humans too, they like ice cream" - huh? I think that this ignores the systemic and institutional problems with police, not just in the States but elsewhere too (including Canada, which is where the family escape to).

Speaking of the characters, I couldn't connect to any of them. Despite getting four different POVs, I felt that I didn't know the family dynamics or any of its members by the end of the novel. The writing is more telling than showing, which keeps me as a reader at a distance. I cared for the characters on a human level, in that I wanted the best for them, but not beyond that.

Overall, this book was not for me.

This book really surprised me. I wasn't sure I was gonna like it, even during many points while I was reading it, I was still very unsure. But I think I might have loved it.

I loved the characters. The were so flawed and human but also incredibly relatable and likable in the sense that I wanted to route for them even when they disagreed with each other. It helped that two of the characters making poor choices were children, that helped me be waaaay less annoyed by their poor choice making because it seemed pretty in character for kids their ages. And speaking of which, how children act at various ages is something a surprising number of authors fail to pull off believably, but Sukol nailed the age-appropriate behaviors and even speech of these kids.

The queer representation in this book was also *chef's kiss* in my opinion. One of the most authentic (though understated) representations of bi/pansexuality I've seen in a queer book.

The pacing of this book was slow but I still thought it unfolded in a really satisfying way. It gave vibes of watching someone's careful reflections of life despite the fact that there are 4 POVs. And each POV feels very distinct and well written.

I loved the inclusiveness of languages in this book. It included languages outside of English but I never felt like I was struggling to figure out what anyone was saying when they weren't speaking English like I have in some books that don't provide translations. This might have something to do with the fact that I have some passable French knowledge but even the Spanish bits didn't Make me feel lost like I've seen in other stories that attempt this kind of thing.

My only complaints about this book are about the world building and on occasion the prose. A lot of the purpose was pretty excellent despite the fact that it's not particularly poetic or elegant. I'm glad for that because I don't think that style wouldn't have for with this story well. Instead the prize shifted depending on the POV we were reading. So the pragmatic characters had slightly more direct prose, the dreamier characters had slightly more meandering prose, the more rigid child had slightly shorter and more concise prose and the slightly flightier child had slightly more dynamic prose. I'm addition each one sounded like it came from a differently aged person as well. A lot of these shifts in pride were subtle which is even more impressive in my opinion. So mostly, I think the prose was exceptional. There were a few scenes however where it felt a little like, "they went there, he said, she said, they walked over there..." And it felt a bit boring stylistically in addition to the purpose of the scene feeling a bit muddy. It's very likely this is a scene or plotting issue though. If the scene isn't really fulfilling a necessary function, then the purpose might be fighting is purpose a bit.

The world building was definitely interesting in many ways, but the attempts to bring the rather into the details of the world felt sluggish and clunky. I felt like it took us to long to get a sense of what this future was like and how far gone it was. Honestly even after finishing, I feel full of questions about the world this story takes place in. Many of my initial wonderings were answered but some it seemed took far to long to get to.

This book was originally published under the name Cycling to Asylum and I really approve of the name change. While cycling was not insignificant by any means to the events in this book and clearly valued by the characters, it want as connected to the themes of the book as the new title which I think does a much better job of alluding to the political AND psychological focus of this story.

Overall I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a slow stroll through a look at hopefulness in a politically and psychologically troubling world. Bonus points for interest in a bi/pansexual male main character and an interest in cycling.

Invisible Line presents a timely and deeply personal vision of political exile and cultural displacement, but its quiet, introspective tone often works against its momentum. While the novel explores meaningful themes—family, identity, and activism—with care, the pacing lags and the narrative sometimes lacks urgency. The shifting perspectives offer variety, yet not all voices feel equally distinct or compelling. Still, Su J Sokol’s speculative lens and emotional insight make this a thoughtful if uneven read for fans of character-driven hopepunk.

This book, set in the near future, is a great dystopian novel about activism. I enjoyed the underlying themes of not being able to outrun your past and standing up for something to believe in. This novel sends a powerful message that strikes true even today. We must stand with conviction. This was a fast read for me, and I could not put it down.

A politically relevant treatise on the evil of fascism and the importance of putting your political beliefs first. I enjoyed this book and felt it was timely and also prescient.