I was lured in with two things—“gothic“ and “love triangle turned poly“—and I was kind of underwhelmed by how both were executed. The gothic vibes at least grew thicker as the story progressed, but I feel like the author missed the opportunity to gradually set up the mood at the beginning—something I tend to expect from gothic stories. The poly thing… eh.

Up until the very end, it read like your usual love triangle, until the MC was suddenly like, “Idk how to choose between you, can’t we all be together?“ and the two LIs were all, “Oh, yeah, well, sure. Btw, we have a history of mutual pining, surely the last chapter is a great place to mention it.“ There was barely any time spent on the LIs’ interactions with each other, and one of them was completely absent from the story for a big crucial chunk of the plot. Nope, sorry, I’m not buying this.

The book did have its moments, though. When the gothic vibes did work, they worked. I appreciated the complexities of Emile’s relationship with his aunt. Some of the side characters provided fun moments; I especially loved Annette who was probably the most practical and level-headed of the entire cast. The villain is appropriately, gothically villainous. The story on the whole is very YA, but I kind of liked how believably YA it was, with all the decision making and planning looking exactly what a bunch of scared teens would come up with. I do wish Emile was a bit smarter, or at least a faster learner, because honestly, I had way too many moments of secondhand embarrassment for him.

Also, a note to my fellow arachnophobes: the creepiest of all crawlies are very much present on the page, and there’s one scene that will probably give you nightmares Tread with caution.