wasn't feeling it right now.

Some of the things the author said, made me feel like they were out of touch with current queer folks.  Even though the book came out in 2024 a lot of the observations were very dated and incorrect for many of the queer folks that I know.

Not in a place for sad stories right now.

As a concept this book is fascinating.  But I struggled to connect with it.  I just think I'm not the right audience.  But I know there are lots of folks out there who will love this!

Just not for me.  I found it relied too much on knowledge of the medieval setting, and the use of historical language, while very well done, just wasn't working for me.  

The main character seemed to have all the moral integrity of a wet tissue. The first love interest, Henri, is a power-hungry controlling abusive red flag.  And I couldn’t stand the way Emil kept swinging wildly back-and-forth between wanting one or the other.
 
 

mediocre writing, bad word choice, flat characters.

Writing wasn't great, just not feeling it.

It just wasn't grabbing me.  Too many new characters without enough differentiation in too short a time frame.  I kept forgetting who was who.

Had just read another poetry 101 type story.