to preface: can’t put a true star rating for this book as i dnf’ed it, but i would give it 1.5 stars.

i was so excited to read this book :/ it just seriously didn’t work for me. first of all,

this book has a cheating trope. which, as someone who almost never reads romance, i had no idea that that was a trope. ew.

also, i can appreciate that Olivie Blake wrote this from an ownvoices perspective on the bipolar representation in this, but

for a book where the point seemed to be, “Regan is fine off of her medications. they don’t let her ✨feel✨  like she wants to”, she absolutely was not stable. i just don’t get it. im reminded of a Will Wood quote (paraphrasing here, i don’t remember it exactly), where he was talking about the “medications for mental illness vs creativity” debate and said something like “does it matter more whether im making art or if im well?” (again, paraphrasing, i may be a bit off but i think that was the gist of it).

despite all this, im very happy for the people who love this book!! it just seriously does not work for me. but the .5 star is for Aldo because he and Masso are the only aspects of this book i liked. anyways i’m headcanoning Aldo as autistic bye :)