Please be aware of TWs and CWs for this book!

Ok, so, finished this one last night and I had to let it sit with me before I could put my thoughts down. Overall, I’d say this story gripped me, the author did incredibly well in portraying and handling issues like racism or homophobia. The overall plot was excellent. I found the main characters well written, plus the way we got both their POVs really makes you love through some horrible moments with them. I had to put the book aside because of how painful some of their experiences were. It’s especially sad knowing that so many people in this world actually make those experiences in real life. Truly a reality check!

Now, this book was sold as dark academia and I didn’t feel like it fits this label at all: DA to me means romanticising intellectually/academia, and that was not what happened here. Yes, it does take place at a high school but that’s about it. I’ve seen this described as a combo of Get Out and Gossip Girl, and that fits better ,less on the GG side though). The book is split into 3 parts, and the first part did not feel like DA or anything I was expecting this book to be at all unfortunately.

I think the ending was a let down. This whole story is dramatic, in a sad and mind wobbling way, but this seemed so easy? Social media never played a role in the whole book and all of a sudden a tweet becomes the ultimate weapon? If Twitter had been integrated into the story, that might have made more sense. I also felt the main issue wasn’t resolved really?

There were also loads of choices made for the convenience of the story: side characters who essentially only have 1 personality trait for the sake of the MCs, or some side characters being super underutilised. I thought that was a bit lame…

Overall, a promising story that could have used more work around the smaller details besides the main storyline.