Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the early copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
Owen and Zarmenus were cute, and it was fun to see their relationship develop throughout the book. Seeing Owen eventually realize what he was feeling for Zarmenus, while Zarmenus flirted with him from the jump, was sweet.
Bell absolutely stole the show for me though. I loved that he was what finally got them both to be brave enough to be honest with each other about what they wanted.
However I struggled a lot with the fact that the university in this book didn’t feel like an actual university in the U.S. It felt much more like a boarding school than a university, which pulled me out of the story pretty frequently. There were a lot of moments where I either had to stop and try to figure out what was being discussed, or where I was extremely confused by a description not fitting reality at a U.S. university even slightly. This was especially disappointing to me because I didn’t have the same issue with Dietrich’s previous novel set in a U.S. university, The Pledge. For teens who haven’t begun their university journeys yet, this won’t be a problem, older teens may struggle a bit as I did.