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You do at points want to hate them, but why bother? They hate themselves enough, quite frankly, for all of us. You may be tempted to feel sorry for them but as the book says:
Which you shouldn’t do. Lord knows they don’t need your sympathy. If you give a mouse a cookie … you know how that turns out. But hey, a bad dad is a bad dad.
There's a lot here about love - familial, platonic, and romantic - and about grief. There's questions of legacy and how much we can even know our parents, in the end. There's the driving question of the book: how to keep failing when you thought you were built for nothing but successes.
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Toxic friendship
Moderate: Eating disorder, Vomit
Minor: Pregnancy
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexism, Sexual content, Pregnancy
Minor: Homophobia, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury
I wish more had been made of Elidh's accident and its impact on her mobility., though, as it felt like disability had been chucked in as a token then glossed over. Give her a fancy stick! It would totally fit.
Also, the magic system felt a little underdeveloped, almost like the book had started off telling a different story and then retconned into the current version. It didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book, but a lot of the magic could be explained in other ways and there were a few times where I remembered that, oh yeah, that's a thing in this book.
Graphic: Death, Death of parent
Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship
Minor: Vomit, Car accident
Graphic: Death, Grief, Death of parent
Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual content, Pregnancy
Minor: Misogyny, Car accident
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Death of parent
I did think it dragged on a bit in the end, could have been shorter and still have been good.
Graphic: Death, Death of parent
Moderate: Eating disorder, Car accident, Pregnancy
Minor: Miscarriage
I can appreciate a character driven story with morally grey protagonists making questionable choices, but ONLY if the writing hooks me.
This unfortunately…did not.
I had so much trouble understanding what exactly the magic system was underneath the lyrical (and at times repetitive) prose. I wish more attention was put on the world building, or maybe I missed it???
However, I did enjoy the side characters and their motives, so that at least kept me from DNF’ing this.
Overall, a disappointing read. But maybe someone else might enjoy this.
~~~~~
I’m so sorry, Olivie, but this book did NOT make me happy :/
Official review to come soon
Graphic: Death, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Ableism, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual content, Car accident, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment
Minor: Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Excrement
There is magic, but it’s not explained it’s just part of the world. I liked this but I saw other reviewers wished for more world building. I liked the chaos because it made it seem plausible that this is just our world.
The story twists a bit on itself in the last 25% and becomes more about parenthood and why it’s so important. It makes you realize… these 3 adult assholes didn’t really stand a chance, because they weren’t really parented. It makes you feel really sad for them.
There is no epilogue, which my romance reading brain wants SO badly, but by the time you get to the end of this book you know the characters SO WELL (because this is a dense book), that you can kind of imagine for yourself that their future will be okay.
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment
Minor: Death of parent
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, Classism
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Death of parent