I wanted to like this--the premise was interesting. But the writing and plotting are messy, with the writing changing in tone frequently in unnecessary and sometimes confusing ways, and the narrative being a bot long, often dull, and sometimes convoluted. The romance element read like it had been added in after the rest of the book was finished--it appeared here and there but never really got anywhere, and then popped up at the end as if it had been there all along. It was a slog to get through.