About halfway through this book , I looked over at my spouse and said "I'm not going to bed tonight until I finish this book." And his response was "you know, you absolutely don't have to stay up." No no. I did.
This book is both difficult to put down and difficult to look away from. Of course it is; Kuang us a genius with character and has never pulled a literary punch in her life and this book is no different. 
What is so good about this book is that Kuang isn't particularly interested in talking to the reader; she trusts us to read the story of June making choice after choice and justifying each one to herself and then being furious that maybe those choices have consequences. She also trusts us to see the connections between power as something an individual has, privilege as something a group has, and hegemony as something an industry has. The story and the excoriation both of entitlement and an industry that seeks to make marginalization into capital that it can use work hand in hand.
I don't love spending time in the heads of awful people and it's a testament to Kuang's skill that she brought me along on this journey the entire way.
Also, I mean, yes Athena is Kuang's stand in. Both her successes and her flaws. I do think that part of what

Candace is doing at the end is properly taking down the idea that Athena is a genius, because it's always just something that June says over and over again. Athena is good, but she's also a magpie and that critique stands throughout the entire book. And Candace's voice exists in order to remind us that June is lying to us—about Athena as much as everyone else

. But why the book works for me gets back to the fact that, while this book gives us all the tools with which to make judgments, it never once justifies any character's behavior. It is, more than anything, a critique of an industry and the choices people make within it. Also, again, a very fun novel, especially if you know how online drama works.