very cool premise!

unfortunately the characters fell flat, the prose was nothing to write home about, the pacing wildly uneven, and the narrative utterly predictable. you can’t give away the game at the literal blurb of the book then make it the hinge of your narrative literally 70% in lmao—and if you have to, then you have to make it work!

all in all... idk! it just wasn’t for me.

i mean, there are good soundbites here that would do well in a tumblr aesthetics post or whatever, but... honestly, just read those quotes in themselves instead of forcing yourself to slog through this whole thing.

if you’re a fan of dark academia, then i guess this is for you—but then again, i’m very deep into the aesthetics of the subculture, so idk why i wasn’t swayed at all by this effort.

ah, well, to each their own, &c, &c.

the only reason i even finished it was bc of sunk-cost fallacy lmao.