i love whatever stars aligned that one day in september that possessed me to take the uni shuttle to the nearest Barnes & Noble and buy this book for twenty dollars. literally floated through so many shelves looking for it before finally finding it. i was so nervous to read it because what if i wasted my money? but then, literally less than 20 pages in, i had a feeling. i had the strongest gut feeling in the world that i was going to LOVE this book in the utmost meaning of the word... AND I DID. every page i read just made fall deeper and deeper. THIS. THIS BOOK. IS MY FLAVOUR OF LOVE. it's so rare to get an all-time favorite like this. i fear casey mcquiston topped rw&rb, maybe not in terms of sheer nostalgia altogether because they are on the same level on that front, but in general. fuck i need a cigarette because the depiction of love in this book and the love that theo and kit share is so special and i wanted it so bad and the relationship they had oh my god. i was blushing and having fluster-attacks reading this because aside from the sheer romance, this is the sexiest fucking book i've ever read in my life. no booktok porn can top the sensuality of the scenes in this book, like you got ME, a veteran of all things smut, BLUSHING AND SMILING LIKE A FOOL. also just the premise of competing with each other to see who sleeps with the most amount of people to deal with ur own sexual frustrations with each other is so funny but it had such a large margin of error where it could've gone wrong (i am scared of booktok tropey writing ruining everything that interests me) but holy shit this was executed so well here because it was just a part of the larger story tied into their character arcs and didn't feel like it was the only interesting part of this book ykwim? this was beautifully paced and structured. the third act conflict in books usually tend to be ass coz it feels like it's just there for the sake of drama BUT NOOOO CASEYY MCQUISTON NEVER FAILS ME coz here the third act "i love you more than anything but i can't do this" KILLED ME COZ IT IS BUILT ON THE CHARACTERS' INSECURITIES AND ITS SO NATURAL UGHHHHHH. and the Birth of Venus and statue of David metaphor dawg i died ten times over—that might be one of the best things modern literature will ever produce. i could go on forever about this book bro. this is an instance of a story where i feel like the author spied on my thoughts and wrote it specifically for me.
