Welcome to a case of "this book was NOT for me". I know there are a lot of readers who enjoy things similar to me who have lauded the praises of this book. But I was severely underwhelmed. The plot was SUPER slow and unrewarding. There were some brief moments of interest when I thought things might pick up, but overall I just found it meh. In fact, there were several times I considered a DNF and I kind of wish I would have gone with that initial instinct. But...by the time I seriously considered it I had already invested too much time and I just had to wrap it up.

The writing wasn't bad, but felt a bit overly chatty and things certainly could have gotten to the point a lot more quickly. There was a great premise, but the execution just didn't work for me. Instead the primary plot felt like a sideline that simply existed to give the smut something to be wrapped up in.

The characters are okay and there is definitely some gay rep for those shouting about this being fantastically queer, but I just didn't find anyone interesting. Instead they came off mostly pretentious and annoying. The smut felt more awkward and aggressive to me than natural to the storyline and I just got ick factor from it instead of feeling like it made sense for the progression of the relationship. I just struggled to find anything that was really above average for me.

Like I said, I'm certainly not in the majority here so maybe I just went in expecting something that wasn't what the synopsis was intending to sell. Regardless, I won't be continuing this series. I'm mildly sad about that because I want a good series with these tropes, but I'm not going to willingly subject myself to this mind-numbing plodding again.