Kris

The machismo of the author is poring through every line and even if though he is an expert his case studies and conclusions mostly seem emotional. 

3.5
I enjoyed reading this book but it would really have benefitted from some more editing. I feel like the pacing was a bit off and the plot had some holes in it.

Apart from that, Kate???s character seems rather flat to me and that may well be because she never actually builds a meaningful relationship with anybody else so all of her dialogue are snarky remarks.

To substantiate her ???not like other girls??? status she only ever interacts with men (excluding a maternal friend with little dialogue) and I???m just tired of action/urban fantasy/YA books that don???t even try to introduce a diverse set of characters who are driven by more than sex hormones and power.

In the same vein, the romantic interest is only ever portrayed as a sensual being with an emphasis on his primal nature and manly man body. At the same time we have a heroine that does not easily give in to lust, she is not one for one night stands (nothing wrong with that but it???s an old trope). As a result we have a juggle of sexual tension (to lure readers in) that cannot be released and a very innocent seeming romantic build up. The tension has to build up (to keep readers in) and reaches its climax (pun intended) only after some puritanical absolution - ie marriage or some other otherworldly bond that equals marriage. Bonus points if there are children.
This is a very American (and deeply conservative) approach to romance and sexuality (in media) and works on the premise of unfulfilled lust which is the only thing that keeps the characters interested in each other. In this way we never get to explore the true nature of their attraction to each other.

Yeah, please don???t read this book unless you love smt and I don???t shame you in any way but I was tricked into reading it by people saying it was disturbing/prohibited etc and I kind of expected Horror or some social critique of some sort. This is not it. Trust me. If you do like smt please still mind the trigger warnings.

You know what, I actually kind of liked this book but I had to realise that I???m just over it. Stories about self absorbed, pseudo-intellectual, arrogant, ???disturbed??? gay boys who can only love by hurting each other. Maybe I???m getting old and all the emotional turmoil of my teenage years finally retired somewhere in my memories. But there was just nothing to gain here. Some philosophical questions were posed, none answered and in the end there was no character development at all.

After the first few chapters I nearly dropped the book because it seemed to be a cheap copy of ???Secret History???, but somehow I was also curious and I am - at least a little - positively surprised.

Personally (as someone who studied literature) I find it a little obnoxious and elitist that the author relies so much on Shakespeare as code: either you know the references or you are deemed less worthy. Literary references can be very helpful and give a lot more depth to a text. On the other hand you can retell/reinterpret another author???s work - as has been done a lot with Shakespeare in varying degrees of success.

But to expect your reader to actually comb through all the references that are not even culturally relevant today (because we don???t use English in the same way as 17th century theatre goers) and refer to different plays with different backgrounds and character sets seems just lazy - it shows to me that you cannot successfully find your own words to weave a story and thus rely on someone else. Or you expect people to just skim over the passages and give you the benefit of the doubt that they were important.

That being said, I would still recommend this book to people who are interested in Dark Academia & Shakespeare but have not read ???Secret History??? yet