Alright, here’s my two-star take. Don't come for me, this is the first and only book I've read by this author and I am very underwhelmed. 

I dove into with the kind of enthusiasm I usually reserve for a late-night taco run, only to find myself picking at the literary equivalent of a soggy tortilla. Night ruiner. Let’s get into it.

Enigma promised dark academia, secret societies, and a rivals-to-lovers arc, I was ready to read the hell out of it and call it my personality for a week. Instead, I got a slow burn that felt more like a candle someone that's been run down to the bottom of the jar, flickering weakly when you light it before giving up entirely seconds later. 

Salem Salazar is a death-obsessed legacy student (as a mortician, this should've been my bread and butter), rolls into Mortimer University to unravel her sister’s mysterious disappearance. Enter Cazimir van der Waal, a tattooed grump with secrets thicker than your grandma's gravy. Sounds delicious, right? Except the execution left me hungry. The pacing drags like a Monday morning, and the “mystery” unfolds so methodically I had time to put on a new set of press-on's. I kept waiting for that RuNyx magic I keep hearing about—the atmospheric prose that makes you feel like you’re creeping through a foggy castle—but it was more like a community college campus tour with a bored guide who lost the script.

Salem and Caz’s chemistry? Eh, it’s there, I guess, like a sparkler that fizzles before you can write your name in the air. I wanted banter sharp enough to cut glass, but their rivalry felt more like petty bickering over the last library book than the steamy tension I’d been promised. And don’t get me started on the secret society... it’s teased like a big reveal at a party, but when the curtain drops, it's less Skulls and Bone and more  your cousin Steve in a faded bedsheet going, “Boo!” I’ve had more suspense during commercials for diarrhea drugs. 

I once stayed up all night reading a book that let me down so hard I threw it across the room (sorry, neighbor who heard the thud at 3 a.m.). While Enigma didn’t get yeeted, but it did make me sigh dramatically enough that my dog woke up to give me a sleepy, albeit judgy side-eye. The tropes—slow burn, grumpy MMC, “she can only sleep when he’s there”—should’ve been catnip, but they landed flat, like a joke you have to explain.

If you’re new to her, you should probably start with Gothikana as I should have done. This one’s for the diehards who’ll forgive a misstep because they’re already in too deep.