I didn't really know what to expect from this but I enjoyed it a lot! God knows, I love a group of fictional pretentious youths. Despite being written by a woman it does have some of the irritating hallmarks of ~literary fiction~--there's like, one female character and she's ~mysterious and lovely~, and I do get that part of that is that we're only seeing her through Richard's eyes and he doesn't really understand any of what he's walked into here. (Also: justice for Judy Poovey, I was so pleased with her epilogue.)

but also like wow



I did appreciate the way the tension builds throughout this, and the way the emotional repercussions played out for everyone. Ultimately I found this book very hard to put down.