Alas. This is just more mid. I get that a lot of people find this book to be really comforting, but it’s just not well written at all. The first half was better than the end. Nothing really happens. It’s chock full of a cast of indistinguishable puppets. There’s no real concept of setting, culture, or place. There’s a lot of made up words to give the feeling of otherness, but it just makes the writing clunky. One country is homophobic, religiously dogmatic, and conservative. The other one is some kinda lgbt utopia where everything is fine (except it obviously isn’t). It reads like porn without plot except there’s like. One sex scene in the novel and it’s very mediocre and short. This is just mashed potatoes with no gravy. Boring. Bland. Disappointing