The pace picked up and down constantly. I was confused by the timeline a few times so didn’t feel as though it always flowed well. The characters weren’t that likeable and didn’t grow much, and the amount of times I had to stop reading to get the meaning of a word took me out of the story and tbh just didn’t feel authentic, a lot felt straight out of the thesaurus.
I actually quite enjoyed the gender stuff, I’m not into gaming but can imagine it must be a cesspit for a lot of young women who are. I originally liked the exploration of the student/teacher relationship, but can’t get over the lack of consequence for Dov? I don’t feel like his behaviour was ever actually condemned, and the way he was shown to help Sadie again at the end felt wrong to me (and them joking about him loving college girls and how he still has his job)
I loved the narrative of platonic love being as important as romantic love, and I’m glad Sadie and Sam never became a couple but I wish Sadie and Marx hadn’t either. I’d have preferred the story without the romance.
Overall I think some of the writing was beautiful (loved the coma sections), there were some great depictions of friendship and I did enjoy it, but it didn’t live up to the hype for me