Not gonna lie — it took several chapters and an embarrassing number of Google searches for this white, small-town, Gen X American to get the vibe of this one, but it was ultimately worth the effort. If I weren't so old and out of touch, I'm sure I would've enjoyed it even more. As-is, here's what I loved:

"Truth lies in diversity and transparency." 

An exceptionally readable, enthusiastically funny, and necessary expansion on the "blinkered science" that has misrepresented the female of the species. From the aggressively dominant female hyena on the cover to the peaceful and cooperatively dominant female bonobos, from the murderous matriarchal meercat to the menopausal mensch of a matrilineal orca pod — the animal world is a fascinating spectrum of form and behavior that is far more interesting and diverse than the "sexist mythology" of stereotypes that have been "baked into" our studies of biology. 

Fascinating characters, beautifully built world, exquisite slow-burn pining, a plot that could use a little more substance 

A sharp and interesting modern adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing that may appeal to adult fans of Ibi Zoboi's Pride. There seems to be an expectation gap created by the early marketing, however, and readers expecting a rollicking, bantering, enemies-to-lovers romance in the vein of Shakespeare's cleverly sniping Benedick and Beatrice may be unprepared for so much past and present trauma, drinking, drugs, and sex. There's sniping, and it's clever, but the tone here is dark and earnest, not playful. Please check the content warnings and read with care. 

As for my personal reaction — I was expecting something a little more lighthearted and humorous and tried to adjust my expectations as quickly as possible. I appreciate what the author accomplished in creating complex and nuanced characters dealing with contemporary issues. Beatriz and Hero are both pretty badass. But parts of the story and the main romantic relationships don't work for me. This is a new adult book — with our characters in their senior year of college — and sex is very much at the forefront. I don't mind steamy romance, but I'm not wired to understand intense physical attraction between people who genuinely don't like or trust each other, so I don't get about 85% and Ben and Beatriz's dynamic. Ben's character growth seems lightning fast. Yes, he's a fantasy nerd at heart and a never-Trumper who loves Jane Austen and has one good friend who he genuinely, (but ineffectively) cares about, but we see his smarmy, sexist, uncaring thoughts at the beginning and it's not pretty. Meg's storyline is horrifying (even more so when it feels like she's sacrificed to accelerate Ben's growth). Hero's reunion/breakup sex with Claudio is intensely cringey and confusing. I'm delighted to think of them all benefiting from therapy, though, and loved to see the positive therapy rep and all the conversations and demonstrations of subtle racism, feeling unsafe in your own damn country, colorism, biphobia, safe sex, addiction, anxiety, trauma, and legacies of abuse. 

If Ashely Poston's The Dead Romantics and TJ Klune's Under the Whispering Door went to a Western-themed party and played a game called "You've Got Mail, Gods and Zombies Edition" — you'd get this bonkers genre-mashup of a book. Which I reallllly wanted to wholeheartedly love, but ended up having a complicated response to instead.

Marshal Hart Ralston patrols the derelict wilderness of the Old Gods to keep the people of the border towns safe from drudges (corpses reanimated by lost souls). He is a cowboy-tough, secret-softy of a demigod with a strong moral compass and troubled background that puts him in opposition to any smiling, upselling undertaker who profits off grieving families. And gods is he lonely. 

Mercy Birdsall smiles brightly as she carries the weight of Birdsall & Sons Undertakers on her very capable shoulders while her father recovers from a heart attack and her sister and brother pursue their own lives. She gives the departed (including the corpses freed from drudges) a respectful send off across the Salt Sea by handcrafting the funerary boats, preparing the bodies, singing the incantations, and remembering to buy more salt and urns and lumber and everything else because her close-knit, loving family is a bit of a disaster. She doesn't appreciate the callous way a certain demigod marshal treats the bodies of the drudges he drops off for processing. And gods does she feel alone and unsupported in the chaos. 

Hart impulsively pours his feelings into an unsigned letter to "Dear friend." When a giant, foul-mouthed, hard-drinking jack rabbit deity (who use to be an exalted messenger of the gods but yeah, okay, is happy — happy! — to be a postal carrier working for a pittance of bad tips from begrudging assholes riding slimy-maned seahorses into the wilderness) posts the unaddressed letter to Mercy, she anonymously writes back … and the rom-com game is afoot. But so is the mystery of the increasingly dangerous drudge problem, and it's all going to come to a head. Or an arm. Or another severed, oozing body part. Because zombies.      

I love a genre mashup and wanted to completely and unequivocally love this bonkers gaslamp Mesopotamian-mythology-inspired (?) fantasy Western rom-com with a You've Got Mail twist — and zombies. By the end, I did really enjoy it, but there were a few things throughout that put me off. And none of it was because of the genre-blender. 

(Explanatory word salad will probably be spoilery.)

I completely understand the "vibe in written correspondence but not in real life" dynamic, so I'm drawn to the You've Got Mail trope, but it can be hard to pull off. In addition to the enemies-to-lovers, you have to navigate the uneven power structure and lie of omission after one person discovers the truth before the other. I thought it went fairly well here in terms of plot and drama but not as well in terms of character. Even though I almost literally squealed as the You've Got Mail scenes unfolded, the faithful echoes of the phrasing in the letters and the cafe reveal scene may have done our characters a bit of a disservice. But I don't necessarily think it's the trope that's to blame. Both of our main characters exhibit some pretty problematic thoughts and behavior when they're in the real-life/enemy phase of this enemy-to-lovers story. Hart repeatedly objectifies Mercy when she's going about her business (literally in her place of business) and resents her for "making him feel perverted" for it even though she has no idea what's going through his mind and hasn't said or done anything in response to it. Yikes. Mercy uses Hart's demigod nature — a circumstance of birth that he has no control over and that she's secretly attracted to — as an insult more than once. I can see the Pride and Prejudice of it all, and the window into their unspoken physical attraction for each other does make the very fast switch from hating to physically worshipping each other a little easier to understand, but it still doesn't sit right with him. To be fair, Hart does later call out another character for being a pig and Mercy does attain a more sympathetic understanding of Hart's demigod situation, so ... character development. But the demonstration of growth doesn't feel adequate for the depth of the problem. There's also a throw away line about Hart having a previous relationship with a married woman. Not a fan of that. Especially since Mercy's ex cheated on her. If there's a sequel, they'd better both be in therapy for the trust issues that are sure to arise after our HEA.

And a few other things that didn't work for me.... multiple characters pressure Hart to drink alcohol when they know he doesn't drink, which is discourteous, childish, and one of my pet peeves. Speaking of the other characters… although fun, many feel like caricatures (and not just the immortal messenger-to-the-gods characters who are fabulously over the top). Speaking of immortals and gods and the like… in a fantasy world that is seemingly unmoored from our time but references gas lighting and crank-powered transistor radios, incongruously modern phrases and ideas rip me out of the story, and that happened a few times here ("follow your bliss," "McDouchebag," reference to a "that's what he said" joke). And I'm just going to say it — Penrose Duckers is the best character in this book and he deserved way better than Zeddie. But at least he's going to have a life of fabulous food.

So, yeah.... Overall, I loved the audacious genre-blender nature of this, was fascinated by the fantasy elements that were incorporated, enjoyed the ode to You've Got Mail (and Pride and Prejudice), and eventually warmed up to the characters and found Hart's journey to be touching and Mercy's to be inspiring and relatable. But there were some specific rough patches (and some general pacing issues) that kept it from being a 5-star hit for me. Which is too bad, because it was fun ride!