seilahuh's reviews
32 reviews

if the author ever reads this, listen to me: you desperately need to know that anybody who told you during the writing process they loved the story thoroughly, and it was 5 stars and flawless and nothing else has lied to you, they are not trustworthy people and they are actively sabotaging you. they have sabotaged you dearly with this story. you needed honest beta readers, your book needed so much more love and revisions. as it is you've presented bones rather than a semblance of a meal to people like me starved for the queer representation you promised. 

first, let's get technical: the story desperately needed an editor. if it had one, axe them. 

so many words, phrases, sentences and scenes were terribly redundant. the length of the story is less related to the content of the story itself but more the fact that it's so long-winded because of repetition, despite having little to say. i read the word scowl and all its derivatives 86 times. for snapped it was 113 TIMES, and it was nearly on EVERY page past the 156 page mark. that should *never* happen in a story, especially when it hinders characterization. it truly spoiled the reading experience. at some point it became clear these words and phrases, misused in many scenarios, and all the redundant scowls, snapping, knuckle rapping, pillow throwing, movie watching, and take out food were meant to be characterization in themselves. and it fell flat. 

every character is essentially the same and simultaneously a terrible cliché. they are archetypal, the pretty dolled up girl-friend, the patronizing boyfriend, the not like other girls fmc; they are not people i can care for. who were they outside of that, i don't know.

the use of third person perspective here could've elaborated on the nature of the  characters, but it doesn't. again, there's just scowls, snaps, knuckle rapping, pillow throwing, movies, and take out food. 


to be less formal, what i really couldn't get over is this book is not the ace rep it purports itself to be, nor is it really queer nor lgbt, which is shocking considering the author's identity. these labels have *meanings* and draw specific audiences (like me ☝🏽) expecting a certain thing when it's promised. aside from the technical issues, that's what made this book so unenjoyable and hard to slug through. it delivers on none of this meaningfully. 

for one, our ace fmc from the beginning of the story who is supposed to have a *disinterest in sex* manages to make every interaction awkward on the basis of adding a sexual subtext that the 3rd person perspective elucidates to us is not there (the "see something you like" comment haunts me). every interaction became weird and unbearable for me to read. you can't hug somebody without thinking about sex or romance? like everything is related back to there and it was annoying because i thought the no-sex character, ace lead would be ASIDE FROM THAT. i could understand this behavior from the allo characters, but again, they weren't the ones mostly pushing it.

as for the queer rep, nick is bi or whateva and is who the lgbt is mostly referring to as he's most prominent in the story (aside from the ace yet hetero? fmc) but he's never actually engaging with men or demonstrating why it's necessary to outline him specifically as "openly bi" when he just gave toxic straight man (contrary to the "sunshine" character he was said to be). and the nonbinary black character is just a convenient "plot" vehicle for the main character to get in a situation where the mmc could rescue her. when i say the book isn't queer, i also mean that most depressingly it defaults on all the cishetero boring and sexist tropes.

chelsea is the simple whore who only exists to drive a wedge between the main couple, nick is a #good guy despite being an ASSHOLE, and worst of all the story uses instances of near sexual assault to set up situations for the cis man to be the dazzling hero. he is always the hero and our lead the weak damsel. but she's stubborn you might say? or strong? no. she is barely characterized and nothing more than a walking profanity. she's trope-ified and marketed as a grumpy character but there's a difference between grumpy and AGGRESSIVE ankle-biter behavior. she was a caricature that snaps and scowls like a rottweiler. she is not a person on the page, but a concept. and unrefined at that. as she is now she's a mean, spiteful asshole rather than an endearing "grumpy" character. it's hard to root for either of them nor their relationship, but im supposedly meant to. yet nothing is romantic or even friendly abt them especially when most of their interactions was spencer lashing out at nick and him harshly talking down at her. 

simply, every aspect the book promises is not truly delivered. and it sucks cause i had hope for this story, i didn't dnf it, i wanted it to get better. but as it dragged on, it became clear that the only thing holding the story together was the concept, the promise of more rather than a cohesive, coherent plot. it felt like the author could've done so much better. it was just not ready to be put out into the world.

One thing that remains to be true irrespective of time is that a man might not have a job or status, nothing to himself but his name, but he will always have audacity! 

For those who haven’t read this or don’t necessarily intend to, I’ll sum up (spoil) the story of Zora Neale Hurston’s Sweat.

In short, Delia works tirelessly as a wash woman for white folks. She's spent every week toiling over the washboard for the 15 years she and her husband Sykes been married. Sykes is a bum. He doesn’t lift a finger to help Delia with the work or care for their home. All of that is beneath him. And for 15 years, though she’s the one keeping them afloat, he’s been abusing her all this time, taking great pleasure in breaking her down. Before Sykes, Delia was a heavily desired, soft-flesh woman with a strong spirit. But she’s less of what she was and sharpened by the years of wear from the washing, rougher to take all the abuse Sykes with both mouth and body throws onto her. In addition to all this fuckery, Sykes is also openly cheating on Delia with a woman named Bertha (old names are so funny).

It’s all so awful, but the dynamic shifts, when Delia recovers some of her former spirit and pulls a skillet against Sykes to stop his abuse. She thinks he's done, but those familiar with abuse know that abusers don’t cow easily. When they are threatened they always do something to reassert power. In the beginning, he tormented Delia by throwing his snake-like bullwhip on her. He knows Delia is deathly afraid of even worms. Snakes are non-negotiable. This time he brings a six-foot rattlesnake into Delia’s house, which he reveals to her by having Delia open up the seemingly unmenacing box. It pleases him that she’s scared, wants it gone, and that the snake will be there to torment her every day because he won't get rid of it. There’s no more she can do about that snake than she can do about him. They both aren’t leaving anytime soon.

He’s like the Devil except he’s ugly, broke, and unemployed. 

Now Joe Clarke, a character in the story, succinctly defines this nature of abuse. 

The synopsis defines Sykes as insecure, but he’s more than that, he’s entirely pathetic. There’s nothing he has going for himself other than he married one of the most attractive girls in their town fifteen years ago, and has been hanging onto her like a tick ever since. He pretends to be more, going around town with his mistresses, beating his wife without reproach, and having her support him through it all. And he gets especially bold after getting that damn snake, inviting folks to Delia’s house to see it. He boasts he’s a snake charmer and that the snake listens to no one but him. 

One day, Delia comes home to work again, and finds the snake in the hamper, instead of its cage. She runs away to hay outside, a barn, and sleeps there. Sykes comes home late and it's a dark morning in the house. But he can’t find any matches for light (Delia used the last match for a lamp when she saw the snake out the cage; Sykes used them all, bought no more like the worthless man he is). He finds out quickly that the snake is free but unlike Delia, he has to fight him in the dark. 

He calls for Delia who, paralyzed by fear, doesn’t come. But she hears the attacks, the screams, all of it outside their bedroom window. When it all ends, she opens the front door to find Sykes crawling to her, barely, neck swollen, one eye still open. He begs for help but there is nothing she can do. And she watches as he dies from his own arrogance because the tool of his abuse against her turned on him in one of the most satisfying instances of divine justice.

The greatest thing about Sweat is that Hurston is not unkind. She won’t let hard work go to waste. Forget whatever bullshit narratives about the "harsh reality of statistics" and the misogyny that keeps writers, filmmakers, and such from exploring endings where women, especially black women, are vindicated instead of brutalized without relief. For all that Delia and readers have suffered (the dialect was harsh on my eyes, Zora you ain’t have to write every single word like that!) we get justice. Delia gets her home back, her life back, and the pathetic bum gets the fast pass to hell. There's nothing better than an abuser getting what they deserve and nothing less. Truly a happy ever after.

im not saying anything that hasn't already been said in that adequate characterization was so nonexistent nothing made sense, especially that everyone somehow knew she was a raybearer even though there was no way for anybody to know especially not us readers because there was little focus on foreshadowing this reveal. the pacing is way off, and the inconsistencies with age and the underage gap relationship is just disgusting. the main romantic plot was so underdeveloped that we really could've gone without it because there was already so much, too much to focus on that detracted from the story.

the lady's past, what exactly tarisai was, the mission to kill dayo, songland and the redemptors, sanjeet and his past, and the big theme of self-determination positioned against themes of systemic change. and all in just like 350 pages, it's not enough for the content. so much of it, if not all of it, was not fleshed out right, all forced in like an overpacked suitcase. even dayo's asexual admission was clunky and nonessential because the love-triangle (?) romance with sanjeet subplot fell through as the dynamics of the council were rarely explored on screen. we never get to see their relationships grow nor hear ourselves the whispers of dayo and tarisai being perfectly matched for the admission to make a dent, and the later reveal that they were cousins was just. . . something had to give!


i wanted to love it like everyone else did, but there's nothing i can find to care for because from the technical elements to the political implications of devising a story around a corrupt empire that should fall into obsolescence, and creating a character to rehabilitate the image of it as if she can simply erase its capital, continuous crimes, mind you, by being a girlboss in charge cause that was the issue apparently and not the thousands of children it sacrificed. . .it's nothing about that story i can love when it's so incredibly hollow (especially the supposed lgbtq+ rep). 

so it gets 1.5 stars 🙂

i didn't know hockey romances were popular like that

brown skin girl your skin just like pearls, best thing in the world ✨️

no but seriously, it was perfect, like for once i have no notes at all, i'm actually shocked...

okay. i want to be nice to this story because of what it means for the author and i tried to enjoy it, but there's only so much disbelief i can suspend.

tl;dr: it's a decent manual on engaging with kink at best, but overall it barely pulls from its supposed inspiring material and the story lacks coherent plot and characterization and it is neither erotic, fantastical, nor romantic.

*lot of complaining forthcoming

the dialogue is boring, and every monster has an indistinguishable voice. and while i accepted that the monsterfcker world is weird with the inclusion of mandibles and knife glass bodies and tens of eyes like spiders (nawt my thing at all), somehow even with the monsters the story is unbearably, yes unbearably, human and not fantastical. which could be fine i guess if the smut, which everyone came for ig (not me really, but it's the selling point) were interesting even with the glass bodies. but i was bored.

yes, i was bored of the monsterfucker story.

and of the storytelling which certainly told me a lot, like how much the monsters loved alice and yet the interactions felt loveless and mechanical and unsexy and boring (i mean they've known each other for years and the dialogue was an incredibly passionless and detached "we love you, you are our queen" speech every time that could be abt literally anyone).

in fanfic this is what would be called porn without plot, which is a shame cause the bones of a plot are laid after the prologue sex scene which becomes especially boring retroactively since EVERY scene is like it exactly, and yet the plot never comes to fruition. it's just full of boring and unerotic sex indistinguishable from nonmonster boring smut i've read and subsequently put down. i only powered through to overcome a slump but god i really wanted to quit. it's at best a manual on proper kink etiquette but everything else it promised to deliver it fails, cause a kink manual is not a story. 

it is not fantasy, the alice in wonderland inspo is slight, but WORST of all it is not erotic. if i hadn't known the author's background i would think it was a teenager's self-insert fiction (especially the murder of her evil stepmum at the end which i could rant about for seven pages, this victorian age woman sees horrific monsters and murder for the first time and is coherent enough to beg alice nay anyone for her life? that is just not realistic nor justified by fantasy and the scene was so...bad) like it's not good and im mad. it suffered terribly from a lack of imagination which should never be an issue in a *monsterfxcker* book. i mean you're already imagining grotesque creatures beyond normal humanity and you made them act like humans. i still don't understand why human physiology and norms were imposed on literal otherworldly monsters; the shadow dick was only interesting cause it finally felt like some fucking fantasy! but it saddened me that these monsters were given human shame enough to be worried somehow alice wouldn't like how their bodies presented genderwise. is the thrill of monsterfucking not a freedom from human conventions and indulgence of unadulterated fantasy? why were these monsters *who don't live in the real world* beholden to human conventions? where was the fantasy exactly? i don't mean to get philosophical but wow, again i've read many a smut just like this sans monster, that i hated just the same for its emptiness so this didnt wow me of course. and dont let me start on that fucking cat. like all around you can call it fantasy only in that monsters removed this all just wouldnt happen. and god the logic of her monsters being "unable" to tell her how to escape with them and then they SOMEHOW do that EXACT THING WITH LETTERS THAT DIRECT HER EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT. and this took 19 years, mind you. 19 years of abuse and starvation, which her monsters who would do anything for her and loved her soooo much apparently just let happen. and that's supposed to make sense and not spoil the entire context of the story? the novella needed to cook in the oven a lot longer cause it's far too underdone and beyond half-baked. like the story all around didnt even make sense??? and then the sex was boring?? it made me wonder what did i even come for cause everything the novella promises simply wasn't delivered.

this was so good. . . compared to what gege is doing now, he just wants to ruin me. and not for writing a tragedy so beautifully, but writing it so lazily i can't help but not care anymore who is left to die. enjoy this while it lasts, cause it does not.

...second book syndrome is real. i've never been so disappointed before in a sequel. the first book IS good. it should've been a standalone and ended differently. this is uninspired and wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't so obvious the writer hadn't thought this far ahead. GON read like diluting soap with water to stretch it. there was no real purpose. the introduction of the Order was pointless and it offered no stakes, one of the most boring, most non-threatening secret societies i've seen. 

a lot of dragging around, a lot of obvious conclusions and progressions only confusing to characters who are conveniently stupid, and when they aren't it's every person secondary to the main holding back information that shouldn't and wouldn't normally be held back. and then it's the main character being uncharacteristically bull-headed and entirely thoughtless they couldn't recognize 2 + 2 equals 4 even if you told them and they tallied it for themself. 

and most annoying of all, NO ONE, gave an in-depth reason why exactly everyone wants to stop theseus (cas) from saving anna more than just "you shouldn't do it." it's been headshakes and glances away, but NO ACTUAL STORY for the ENTIRE BOOK. until approximately 20 pages from the end where we speed-run and force a plot and what's happening with anna which the story lost the idea of for ONE HUNDRED PAGES. and the ending? ohhhh that really pissed me off. it's one of the most insipid, uninspired portrayals of an afterlife. wholly fucking boring and i suffered through an entire book for what? nothing. 

also carmel was and has always been uninteresting and annoying so the forcing of her to be this strong, important, "firecracker" when she was more than willing to let anna suffer in hell (even tho she saved HER life) and was a loser character was hilarious. almost as funny as the main character having the arrogance to think no one could do his job, and this build up of him being tough and ready to do anything, give up anything to save anna, yet he leaves anna to fight off the spirit who'd been hurting her for 6 months in hell (who she saved HIM from) because he was 'scared'. even when it was killing her. i couldn't believe my eyes because again, it was hundreds of pages to this, only for him the great ghost-killer to do NOTHING BUT WATCH. god, i wish this book didn't exist. 

cas didn't see his dad (which was one of the plots shoved in at the end that i was vaguely interested in only for it to go NOWHERE). didn't speak to him (dialogue in this story lacked overall tho, very weak) he didn't bring anna back. we know nothing about how any of this ghostbusting shit works or why it exists.  just vague, ambiguous statements and something about a nameless "warrior" years ago. we have gone to hell and back for nothing at all. 

sat on this review for a year, but honestly I'm side-eyeing every "queer" creator that spoke highly of this, cause it's so...empty. and antithetical, cause for one it's bioessentialist as hell. the draw is meant to be the triad and the thrill of 3 sexy guys lusting after what, with how little valuable characterization there is for the fmc, might as well just be a self insert. though i can't think of anyone i'd want to be less.

let's be clear, it wouldn't bother me so much if she was simply incompetent, or clumsy like every other fmc in stories of this caliber. but she's not only this but impossibly the precious, dainty little stupid girl and yet the pliable, desirable whore. 

too often was it emphasized how small she was i couldn't keep myself from retching. especially in cole's point of view where he describes her once as "so small standing next to me. so delicate." and then once AGAIN emphasizes: "and now daisy’s here, all five feet of her, soft and small and gentle. she’s the worst possible combination: fragile, but too brave—or stupid—to care. she’s half of my weight soaking wet, but she still assumes she can keep up with me and the others."

that is textbook bioessentialism. along with just a slew of other problematic internalized misogynistic complexes—but point being i was disgusted. yet, i understand even that in romance now and popular recent examples of erotica, these types of differentiations are meant to be attractive and erotic, sensual, romantic. but i ask, where's the romance? along with those other words, it meets none of this. it was gross, and i was not hot for anyone. 


which, how could i really even be that when every character had the same voice and the love interests were not actually different beyond the few visual descriptors (their muscles are big, their dicks are big, their egos are big.) and most notably the diversity hire, which always annoys me with nonblack authors. the decision to include a black character, especially into a white triad (or a quad really) in an overly white country with immense racism is not a light one when none of these frictions really exist and are as abstract as his racialization. 

also daisy being stupidified enough to ask why that girl wouldn't lie and say her baby was riven's, i promise i didn't laugh not once. if you can't handle blackness seriously, leave it alone. 

the writing also generally wasn't good—"He looks sinful. Like a sexy, off- limits professor, or something," "Jesus. Talk about morning wood," "creamy tits."—like it was low quality here.

and then the SECRET...i stuck through only for the most uninteresting reveal. and i truly do not care about some shallow messaging of trying to cover the tragic, traumatizing reality of revenge porn, the author took the fmc's trauma and steam rolled it for low quality porn. she had no intention of even sitting with it and letting her and us feel it.

the narrative drops very, VERY sparsely here and there that daisy is the slightest bit scared of sex because of the rp. but really in story she's made no ACTUAL show of being ashamed of sex or anything that denotes shame or trauma. she's been fucking willy nilly like a pro, while having the innocence of a fool, and yet apparently the modesty of a nun. she brought travel sized lube with her magically for immediate anal because that makes sense in the "im never having sex again because shame" narrative the author tried to push toward the end to bolster the triads relationship. 

which. back to that...


"but now my body feels like it’s mine again."

and it's all because sex magically healed her, the very thing that traumatized her. and with people who have treated her like garbage, especially cole, the blue eyed, blond thor type she pines after like some dog...i hate this narrative for a multitude of reasons. it's just not true, stems from bioessentialism (a broader conversation in its gendering), and it's just terrible. i get it was to connect the overarching boring story to the necessity of her even being in sweden and the smut, but damn i wish some authors would stick to one shots. 

because hundreds of pages of this was just not good. and real talk, to get real bare, the narrative that people who don't have sex a certain way or who don't at all are miserable, is tired and coercive. real lovers move without doing all this and value multiple realities.

and i just didn't like getting acquainted more with the author's own limited, unerotic perspective. but my reading goal was untouched so i trudged on.


but it really truly was some of the most unsexy writing and most unsexy scenarios. i mean anal takes proper preparation. this bitch was eating beans and tin can chili for TWO DAYS. this ain't a water park, this shit is brokeback mountain! i literally gagged in a bad way. 

and these men supposedly teaching her to love her body again, through sex, were so volatile. not even just masculine or manly, but violent which again—where's the romance?

the redhead, which the author makes sure you know that through repetitive mention, wasn't so worse comparatively. but at the climax where the boring secret is revealed, gold creates drama out of nothing and makes riven, the dei candidate, explode. as described he is furious like he hates her and "Riv’s never shouted at me before. I didn’t even think he could. But now the calm, gentle doctor has been stripped away, and I don’t recognise him anymore."

again, we must be clear: this is not a foundation for love. people who love you right and truly will not do this, especially at the start of your very tentative, fraught relationship. abusive relationships begin like this only, not romantic ones. so of course i was disgusted at the portrayal and the inevitable dismissal of the moment as being justified (by daisy) and lightly by the narrative with the insinuation by eli that love makes you crazy. plus, they had petty trauma before of some past partner lying on them that the secret supposedly reasonably triggered (which we will return to).

it was this treatment along with cole's hatred and antagonistic demeanor toward the fmc which ruined the story just as much as every other incredibly flaw. though maybe this was fatal. if this is a romance, erotica type book, i must LIKE the love interests or at least want to fuck them. but i just wanted them to die. 

like, let's revisit some cool quotes with cole:

“I think I like you better when you can’t talk.”

“You think because I saved you from freezing to death, I want to kiss you? It’s my job to help weak creatures that can’t handle the snow.”

“I should’ve let you die in that bush,”

this is all truly peak romance.


i ask myself a lot what's wrong with cis women, but this story really pushed it. there has never been a more viscerally sickening mmc for me. none of this is manly, desirable behavior. the adherence to bioessentialism was cranked up so far we just emerged straight into cruel abuse. clearly he was the author's favorite with the intense focus on this loser, but he was not mine and he would've never been no matter how the narrative tried to force it by making him pitiable. the triad was betrayed by a heartless bitch! so how could he ever love again when she took advantage of his love? 

BOO 👎🏽 🍅🍅


and that's what i hated so much about this story even further. you can pile on sex and partners and talk of miserable missionary monogamous people, but that's not a progressive mentality immediate. the story was laden in bioessentialism of course, so it was misogynistic and it was so heavy that it was not possible to ignore. 

every other woman in the story is either a jealous bitch, a judgemental bitch, or a two-faced, adulterous whore. don't mind if i rip this book to shreds.

and i mean every one, even the random flight attendant at the end who just HAD to be flirting with daisy's partners of all men. and during her job of all things, what about work etiquette??

and lastly the part with her mother, god i rolled my eyes. the next part i share from my old notes cause i predicted it exactly:


Book: “I’m sorry, who are you? And why are you even here?”

NOTES: *grabs hands dramatically* "he's–" stares at all three of the men," they're my LOVING, supporting, hot, sexy, talented partners who fuck me all at once and don't think i'm a whore. they're BETTER than you, who didn’t trust or believe me." *the parents are shocked*

Book: “All three of them?” Mum asks hoarsely, looking between us. “H-how is that possible?” I shrug. “They each get two days a week with me, and they all share me on a Sunday.”

NOTES: WGAT DUD I SAY


like i knew where it was going and it was so bad!!! everything was so bad!!! again, i sat on this review for a YEAR. this book annoyed me so much focusing on it at all after the end was unbearable for me. i understand people have their things they enjoy, but i put my foot down here. 

the premise was the only thing sustaining me, along with my will, more resolute than any nordic hammer, but it was nawt good. it went beyond into worse. seriously, misogyny in 2023? 2024? if y'all don't grow the hell up!

we need substance, complexity, real eroticism in vulnerability removed from cruelty. put down the bioessentialism, that is not erotic! it's not sensual, romantic, or sexy!

like gosh. there was...so much to not like. i actually didn't like anything in retrospect, not even the sex and all the "spearing" and jackhammering. and that's as much as i will say.

last is a few pieces that stuck out and my final comments on them:

"when you love someone that much, they have so much power over your thoughts. they don’t even have to get inside your head; they’re already there.” daisy stupid ass

"so his chest is pressed against my back, and his erection is rubbing between my asscheeks."

since i've been here i've been privy to some of the most unsexy descriptions of sex. 

"swears in swedish" WHAT DID HE SAY—ugh this is such a COPOUT.

"then spears into me in one solid thrust." violent language

"holy shit, the guy is jacked."

"i x out of the clip" 

"riven pales." god, this annoyed me bad. he is a BLACK MAN. we do. not. PALE.

"i feel… used. like a used tissue. a bit of trash.”

"cole kisses like he’s fighting." eww gross.

repeated descriptions of hair "chocolate waves," "auburn curls", "delicate", "big"


"one kiss. that’s all it took for her to unravel me completely." that damn dua lipa song.

"they’ll probably see me getting fucked from behind?” 

this phrasing has been used three times by three different people.

“'these poor people,'” eli sighs mournfully. “'i bet they all have unsatisfying missionary sex once a year, then lie awake at night dreaming of getting fucked in the ass. i bet—'”

SEE???

"holy shit. what’s wrong with me? even in a completely safe, supportive environment, it’s like I can’t shake off the last scraps of old embarrassment. i don’t want to be ashamed to have sex. i don’t want this to be a part of my life."

the book won't let her have trauma and it WON'T let her heal from it. it's focusing her to get over it, like that's what trauma is. and for a shallow ending that doesn't address her pain but rather shunts it. pain like this doesn't heal through slutty sex with men who mostly dislike you, but as the fmc is a misogynistic, pornographic ideal with no solid character beyond the stupid, naive, innocent, clumsy, door next girl who loves to paint and LIVES to fuck. she's not a person, but a doll and a house maid, so of course the author's limited on the intricacies of how trauma exists in the mental, inner space (which this book lacked incredibly). 


"i’m surrounded by love all the time. it cocoons me. it wraps me up and keeps me safe and warm." BOO, bitch, BOO 👎🏽 🍅

p.s. they all had strenuous sex with her just after she nearly died in a blizzard, which included the anal scene. and these men who were supposed to be so loving and better than her former bfs, all watched the revenge porn 🙃

they could've gotten context any other way, but the author made sure that extra violation was there and by the supposed desirable love interests no less, and that's truly why i will always hate this book.

at least, it's a paranormal romance. at most it's a story about two cursed teens, one dead, one alive, afflicted with bloodlust and hellbent on revenge. regardless, i loved it. it's unfortunate these feelings couldn't carry over to the sequel however...