This is a really tough one to rate, to be honest. I can tell that it came from a personal place (what stories like this don’t?) but so much of it just didn’t work for me.

I think my two strongest complaints are that the interludes between chapters (especially the Ao3 fic omg) don’t stick the landing and end up feeling a bit too fake. I’m not sure why they’re there. To provide context that we’d otherwise get from the narrative? I don’t know.

What really hurts this book is that we don’t see either character really work on themselves, when that should have been the point in the first place.

I still liked it, but the problems are ones I can’t really ignore.