“There are those who die in fire and those who thrive in it.”

I am empty

“You do not get to decide your worth to someone else. Only they do.”

That is my dead body on the ground over there. Lifeless.

Honestly, how dare this book?

In this realm, knowledge is power, and no one knows better than I the danger of being powerless.

I don’t really even know where to start with this review. I think I experienced every emotion while reading this, and she thicc, so there was lots of time to experience everything lmao

It’s a game, lives being weighed and discarded as chess pieces, all in pursuit of the final objective. The capture of the white queen.

I kinda hurt now. Summer was such a beautiful character. I fucking hated her at times and loved her other times and hurt with her, connected with her, cried with her. She felt the highs and the lows so strongly, with her loud thoughts, her loneliness and terror.

Are Alice and I cut from similar cloths, full of torn pieces we desperately stitched together, hoping no one would notice how mismatched they are?

Summer and Alice are peak besties and I need more friendships in books

Connor hooks his finger under my chin and gently tilts my head up so I meet his gaze. Oh, you smooth fucker. “Be my date.”

The men in this book. WHERE DO I EVEN START?? Connor, the Headmaster, the Stranger, Max, Rafe. Just to name a few.

“How was the golden dude?”
“The golden dude tried to make me eat a sandwich mid-makeout.”
Alice snorts. “Is that code for his dick?”
“What? No. He wanted me to eat an actual sandwich.”

Don’t even talk to me about the end. I need 3-5 business days to process that, followed by a 3-week vacation and tears.

“I’m always proud of you, babe. But I want you to be proud of you.”

The amount of highlights and notes I took throughout this. Unless you spell it out, I will miss hints and such, so imagine, for a second, how USELESS I was in trying to figure out the Strangers identity, literally flipped back and forth 50 million times, and he has a pierced peen, so end game please. And then this made me feel bad for Connor, and my mind was just as loud as Summer's while reading this.

“Well, I saw this girl at this party and all I could think was, Her. She is the reason I didn’t date before.”

Go into this book blind, you’ll thank me for it. Just know that it’s a dark academia/romantasy with lots of spice, mystery, hot men, murderous besties, and lots of magic, angels, shifters, vampires, and fae.

I sigh and turn back to my salad, getting more and more irate at the stupid fucking angel sitting across from me. One second, he’s smothering me, and the next he’s ignoring me? The fucking gall. Pick a lane.

Thank you so much to the authors for this eARC and (when it arrives) PR box!