this was EVERYTHING to me. i love these emotionally vulnerable men. nothing is quite so delicious as catholic guilt and repressed sexuality coming head to head with carnal lust and debauchery. both danya and ilya were incredibly well characterized; they’re messy, pathetic, defensive damaged goods… and so desperate not just for each other but for liberation. loved that shit.

i think rooting this story in fantasyland (slavic sounding town names that don’t exist) was the right choice. but by utilizing russian specific names and legends paired with very real world months and years, it created a sense of dissonance between what the reader expects of the language used and industrialization of the region they’re in. i spent a fair third of the book trying to figure out if this takes place in the real world due to the months being from gregorian calendar.