trice

welp the ending totally destroyed me...

i- this was genuinely so stressful to read
but it was so thrilling
and emotional
and hopeful
and glorious in the masterful plot execution
and made me swear a lot
so...5 stars it is.

love the banter. honestly the main characters have wayy too high of an IQ their plotting is quite impressive. no explicit sex(mostly described figuratively) altho they are both pretty dirty minded (這還算清水嗎。。。)

debating if it should be 2.5 or 3 stars.

the first thing i thought when i started this: wattpad vibes (the ones that feel like its written by a 15 yo)

the reason i thought this was because, well, the traumatized but unique and overpowered MC, the dialogue that sounds like it fits a middle/high-schooler's persona more (“dweeb”), the constant biting of lips etc.

the characters were okay, kind of bland(plus Micah and Zeke have so much trauma but it's so easily brushed off). the romance wasn't really that slow paced, it honestly started earlier than halfway through(for Micah/Zeke/Hyde). the action portion of the plot was okay as well, it's nothing too surprising and didn't take up a lot of the chapters since the romance was the main focus. also, do the LI's have to get a hard-on every time they see Micah?

less magical realism than the first book, plus the plot is far more thrilling. the biological warfare present here is not often seen in novels, and it's been an interesting topic to read about. we see lots of characters from EO and Ascendent return; relationships form and break and strengthen under this new pressure. the ending is pretty open, but i don't see another spinoff (and i don't think there'll be one since this book came out in 2019 and the author has published loads of books since), which is kind of sad. this is honestly one of the few books i wish had more pages...

good prose good plot good characters though. i probably won't reread because this whole universe is very emotional and intense...but i'll check out the author's other books.