The first 100 pages of this novel are beautiful and totally grabbed me. At that point, I got the hype, I understood why everyone was raving over this book. I liked the prose and the sobriety writing was beautiful too - very raw.

But once I hit that 100-page mark, we just started to meander: the POV slips, the narration gets…lazy? The banal conversations and extracts from Cyrus's book were just not engaging. The dialogues were flat (especially between Zee and Cyrus) and often rang hollow. The sense of the intimacy between the characters that I felt in the beginning was gone. 

The premise of Cyrus and Orkideh speaking was so interesting and yet so little comes of it! I was so invested when they met at the beginning of the book but they ultimately don’t have a single meaningful conversation. How do you fumble the most interesting plot point in the entire plot?! Just….so unfulfilling. 

Ultimately, beautiful writing, excellent premise but the middle fell flat and the ending felt rushed. Just didn’t do it for me.