I have very mixed feelings about this book, especially since the opening pages gave me very high hopes. The first half was pretty great, the writing was solid, the characters were very distinct (I'm obsessed with Rhodes, would read her spinoff in a heartbeat). I was really invested in the setup and the dynamic between the two leads and the whole us-against-the-world vibes with two misfits solving a supernatural mystery together.

But then, the story became character-driven to the point of completely losing the plot. We started off strong, chasing new leads, and then sort of starting going in circles where events happened seemingly only to get an emotional reaction out of the characters. And in these sections, the writing started to get a bit … fanfic-y? Actually, I think I've been noticing this in a lot of recent novels. Not that there's anything wrong with fanfiction, but more and more authors seem to start there, and it has a very specific tone that carries over into original works, too, that I think is not quite for me. One mark of it is these very drawn-out scenes that singularly focus on the characters and do nothing to build up the world or the plot. (Might be a coincidence, I don't know if these authors wrote fanfiction, but based on the story structure I would guess at the very least they read a lot of it haha.)

So, because there was so little world-building, I found myself getting bored in the scenes that were meant to advance the plot. The characters were invested in each other but didn't really have any personal connection to the events around them or a particular motivation to solve the mystery, and I ended up being unsatisfied with the whole resolution.

To sum up: if you like very slow burn m/m romance with lots of pining and traumatic backstories and not a whole lot of action, this might be right up your alley. If you're here mainly for the speculative mystery, though, imo it was a bit of a miss.