I love love loved this book. This is a rough premise, and even harder to pull off well. Kuang makes it emotional without feeling overwrought or overwritten (and I have encountered those a LOT this year), and she makes it really romantic and extremely sexy (and sexy is, for me, very hard to pull off!!). I found Helen's skittishness so understandable, and even her frustrating defensiveness and resulting road blocks felt well-navigated. And Grant is kind of one of the dreamiest male leads I've encountered in a while so Kudos. Their coming together is so natural and the chemistry is so fun.

I did find the sister stuff a little off - the turn to 'she was into drugs' felt like a weird turn - but I did still like the messiness of the rage and fear and heartbreak there. If I do knock this star down in an eventual reread, it would be for that reason – but I enjoyed myself too much on the other bits to do that today!!