4.25⭐ rounded up

Breaking News: I did not, in fact, like this book more than the first. But clearly I still liked it a lot!

I can never see the full scope of Kaz's plans until the end and it really is a treat to see them play out every time. Kaz continues to be my favorite character and that ending with Inej was the sweetest thing I think I've ever seen. I about started bawling.

As for things that didn't quite work for me: funnily enough, in the first book, I wasn't the biggest fan of Matthias's storyline and how quickly his arc happened (to be clear, I really like him as a character, but the execution was off for me)...and now in the second book, it's Matthias's storyline again that I'm struggling with. It just felt like the ending happened so fast and kinda out of nowhere. I was also expecting more of a struggle from Inej and especially Nina after the first book, but that got resolved fairly quickly as well.

Those are all relatively small things, though. Overall, I had a great time with this duology and all 6 of the crows were a genuine pleasure to follow.

rated 4.75 on storygraph

once upon a time when nezuu was a wee little lad, they came across the internet shitholes that are reddit, 4chan, and pre-elon musk twitter (not that elon helped anything, really), and accidentally stumbled into one too many a thread featuring uncensored gore, explicit sexual content, and a cluster fuck of users confessing to their deepest darkest crimes and getting into fights on the internet attempting to "expose" one another.

anyone who's been on the internet at least as long as i have knows exactly the vibe i'm talking about. the kind of drama that has you sitting there scrolling for hours and hours through multiple threads, trying to get the full scoop on things. the kind of drama that starts off relatively normal but devolves so deeply that you're left questioning if you've just borne witness to a real crime, or if it's just a whole bunch of internet trolls who've capitalized on the opportunity to lie on the internet for no reason beyond attention-seeking and sensationalizing.

cooper takes this reality of the internet (and users' willingness to engage in this behavior, even as lurkers) as the basis for this book, and in the process dives into so many of the base issues of engaging with online content in our day and age: toxicity, performativity, masculinity and the toxic adherence to patriarchal standards, the difference between what is reality and what is fantasy (and people's lack of ability to distinguish between the two), the desire for internet "clout" even if it's based on lies and dramatization, and the extent to which people are willing to go in the name of ending out on top in the competition to become a celebrity online.

every motherfucker in this book is a liar. every single last one of them. they all participate in drama threads that are reviews and forum posts about a male escort named "brad", and every single one of them, at some point or the other, admits to lying and making things up for the internet fame points of having had sex with celebrity escort "brad". the fantasy of brad mimics the way drama typically unfolds on the internet, starting off very tame and normal, then devolving over time into extreme, explicit gore, rape, and dehumanization. and yet, not a single one of them steps away because of the now parasocial relationship they all have in their heads of themselves and brad.

what does it say, then, that as a reader, i too stuck through the entire book without stepping away? what does it say about me that i did entirely buy in to what i was reading, and i started trying to put together the pieces just like all the characters in the story itself? by making this read like an online thread, cooper makes us as readers bystanders and complicit in the sensationalization of brad. granted, we get more meta through our access to recordings of private calls, private faxes and emails, etc. so you could argue we're not the same as the bumbling idiots that have no reliable information but continue to engage with it regardless. we're made to feel like we have the insider scoop on it all but do we really?

i think that this book gives us as readers a lot to chew/ruminate on in terms of internet culture, our positionality and role within it, and the normalization and desensitization to extreme violence that comes with internet engagement. i could not recommend this book hard enough, but please do be warned that this is extreme horror, so please check CWs/TWs before deciding to engage!