I was so excited for this book - a Count of Monte Cristo retelling (gender-swapped!) and an ace side character! Unfortunately, it barely functioned as a retelling (and when it do so, it was painful) and the ace character literally disappears for about 90% of the book. The world building was lackluster and it was frustrating to try to understand until I realized there wasn’t much thought put into it and gave up. This may have been partially doomed from the start because I don’t think a teenager could ever take on the role of the Count, but accepting that premise would be part and parcel of a YA retelling, it still failed inside that structure. It could’ve explored gender expectations and could’ve built up to the “twist” by recasting who some of the key characters were in the retelling (setting up Amaya as the Countess only to subvert reader expectations and have her really be an Albert analogue would’ve been fascinating, keeping Roach in the picture as a Franz stand-in, but the relationships needed to build that up were glossed over).

I did appreciate the abundance of POC and queer characters in the cast, especially for something published by Disney. I had already decided not to read the sequel, but this did wrap up very well for not being a standalone.

If you’re looking for a good Monte Cristo retelling, I can’t recommend watching Gankutsuou enough instead.