I spent the first two thirds of this book enjoying it. I liked seeing Nareh’s journey to appreciate her Armenian heritage and community while also grappling with homophobia and the fear that she would be rejected if she came out. This journey feels like a compelling plot line. But the third act was so painful, and so much of it happened in one chapter with no time to process. The miscommunication felt like a lazy plot device. 

I was underwhelmed by the characterization of Nareh (and other characters too, but it matters less since we’re not reading from their POV). We learn a lot about Nareh’s feelings about her family and some of her work, but we learn little else about her personality, hobbies, friends, etc. As a result, she feels very flat, and so when she makes a terrible awful decision in the third act, it’s hard for me to keep rooting for her. I enjoyed what we do learn about the love interest, Erebuni, to the point that I feel like she deserves better than Nareh by the end. The epilogue makes it sound like this cute HEA, but honestly I was still stuck on the bullshit Nareh let people think about Erebuni, that it didn’t feel like a happy ending to me and left a sour taste.