i have a love/hate relationship with this book.

firstly, please check trigger warnings for this!

at times in this novel, i felt as though Sáenz had reached into the deep, dark depths of my thoughts and written them onto paper. it was scary, but it was comforting. the writing was also absolutely beautiful, the main characters were written so well, and the queer romance was so wholesome.

i can’t give this five stars, however, because i feel as though the author exploited problematic language (that many transgender people find extremely offensive and hurtful) for no reason other than to provide a cause for Ari’s brother being in jail (when there is a multitude of other reasons he could have used).