"It was just us — the seven of us and the trees and the sky and the lake and the moon and, of course, Shakespeare. He lived with us like an eighth housemate, an older, wiser friend, perpetually out of sight but never out of mind, as if he had just left the room."

I think my love for pretentious-but-passionate college/uni students is well-documented at this point, so I'll just add that I have a particular love of Shakespeare and of theater — I have particularly fond memories of doing scenes from Caesar and Hamlet. (Though I'm still working my way through the rest of his works; they're rewarding but challenging reads.) It's very much a "dark side of new adulthood and academia" story, which I am very much into.

This is such a masterfully woven story, brimming with emotion and messily-human characters/relationships and some really freaking fantastic lines. I will admit that the main seven blur together a bit, especially in the beginning (even trying to remember them by their easy identifiers, i.e.

Oliver is the narrator, Meredith is the sexy one, Richard is the asshole golden boy, etc.

), but that's nearly always the case with these big ensemble casts. And I honestly wasn't even trying to piece together the plot because I was so engaged in watching it all unfold.

tl;dr This is a fantastic book that more than lives up to the hype.

content warnings: 

major character death(s), slut-shaming, bullying (physical + verbal), queerphobic (homophobic, biphobic, transphobic) language, drug abuse & overdose, casual suicidal ideation, eating disorder (minor character), suicide (mentioned), implied domestic abuse

rep: 

bi/pan MC, bi/pan love interest, queer Latinx major character, Jewish major character

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CONVERSION: 13.4 / 15 = 4.5 stars

Prose: 9 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 9 / 10
Emotional Impact: 8 / 10
Development / Flow: 9 / 10
Setting: 9 / 10

Diversity & Social Themes: 4 / 5
Intellectual Engagement: 5 / 5
Originality / Trope Execution: 5 / 5
Rereadability: 5 / 5
Memorability: 4 / 5