chloe gong, you have done it again.

despite saying that and being utterly in awe, i do have my concerns. 200 pages in and the stakes were still being raised. of course, as a shakespeare fan I expected nothing less, but as a reader I wanted the pace to increase in some parts.

Spoiler

yet when rosalind's activities were revealed, I knew the rollercoaster was in fact well under way and had been for a while now. but this the exact moment when gong's grip tightened. the book and the characters had seized me long ago, but I welcomed the grasp.

I was originally going to rate this 4.5 stars but the ending is such a tragic magnificence that I could not rate it the book anything other than 5 stars.