was this utterly predictable? did I see the plot twists from miles away? did it frustrate me when noam ignored hints that flashed like a times square billboard and continued to not understand? yes.

do i care? not one bit.

i don’t care about plot. i read for characters and worldbuilding and relationships of all kinds. if you make me love the characters, i could read about them grocery shopping and cleaning the house and playing scrabble and i’ll love every second of it.

and i was already drafting adoption papers on the first chapter. i love noam. i love dara. i love ames. bethany and taya need to be better developed to win me over, but the potential is huge. i love to hate lehrer.

on top of that, this is a timely book about immigration and elected facism that hits many marks re: all the fuckery that’s going on with the world right now, not to mention the careful exploration of abuse and its consequences.

and it definitely helps that this book gave me huge the foxhole court feelings. they’re not similar, not really, and i don’t know how to explain, but something about it reminded me of the three-day-weekend when i first devoured the all for the game series and signed my soul away to the foxes. so. you know. consider me already obsessed.

tl;dr: plot is meh, the rest more than makes up for it. i’m giving it five stars because i can. i never claimed to be an objetive reader.