3.5 stars

4.5 stars, she is very beautiful to me

3.5 stars
This started out strong with some beautiful prose, towards the middle-end it got repetitive and I felt the whole story was a bit short. I would have liked to see a longer timeline with more character development and more attention to the political events going on around them. The last paragraph <3333
I also didn't like how basically the whole relationship between the mc and his bf centered around queer trauma - there was a very big motif of feeling shame for being gay, that's never resolved and the only queer joy that occurs is when the two men are alone together. It reflects the times and does make the story sufficiently sad, but the whole paragraphs of feeling shame for being gay/gay yearning/feeling like nobody will accept you
Makes up for it's faults with its immersive writing and beautiful prose!!

2.5 stars

What was the point??!!

A really cool book, written by a really cool author

2.5 stars