don’t read this unless you are a theater kid or are enough of a fan of shakespeare to quote his works on a regular basis through your daily life.

i found every character insufferable and was underwhelmed by the reveal of what happened with the murder.

the homophobia that caused the murder is absolutely awful, however the antagonist calling the murder a slur while black out drunk was such a lackluster reason to “snap” considering that man was actual scum. he did other things worse than that before the event and no one “snapped” and murdered him before that. also found the ending extremely unsatisfying that the MC gets out of prison and then finds out the person he did all of this for has committed suicide. i get that this is a tragedy like the old plays they performed in while in college, and that all of this is metaphorical for how they become the characters they play,

i just found that i did not care enough about the characters for it to be meaningful to me in any way. in fact, i could not have cared less about the characters, and found them annoying. 

i thought the author was a good writer, i just hated all of the themes, aesthetics, characters, and basically everything about this. i was expecting something much more sinister for it to be a thriller, possibly even an “and then there were none” where at least multiple people are murdered. i think they know how to write well, but i am clearly not the right audience for this story. it has so many good reviews, which made me sad bc i was so excited to read it and then it actively contributed to and further exacerbated my reading slump. 

i would still try another book by this author since i like thrillers, but i will never read anything contemporary that has any mention of theater or shakespeare again.