I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I want to start by saying check the trigger warnings when you read this. Since there's no standard for them that I know of yet, you can find them on the copyright page, which might make them a bit harder to find. Quite honestly I think they deserve their own page because they really are quite severe in this, to the point where even things that don't normally bother me did.

This really is an excellent horror book. It starts off strong and just grows from there, using both the traditional monster jump scares and a growing sense of horror as it goes on. I do want to say I'm a fan of Andrew Joseph White's books, and this is not like his at all. White's books (the ya ones anyways) are promised to have everyone as okay as they can be in the end, and at no point does this book have that. I think that CG Drews was determined to traumatize their characters as much as possible, but it works for this story.

The main thing I did not like and major reason for starting loss here is how codependent Andrew and Thomas are. I know that this is intentional for the book, but it is seriously toxic and maybe I'm just too old for ya now but I wonder why no one intervened.

There is ace rep in this book as a last note. I think it was very good, though it also describes ace as not getting crushes either, which isn't right and I believe falls more under aro. Otherwise, it's very good, especially considering how hard it is to find ace mlm books, in my own experience.