I received a free eARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, I am going to be very honest in my review I am so sorry Emma Barry.

TL;DR: I do not think anyone on earth should read this book. SPARE YOURSELF.

I'm going to start with the positives. The prose is very competent and enjoyable, and I would gladly read another book by Barry again if it... well we'll get into the rest. I also really enjoyed Jess's character for the first 30% of the book, and for parts of the rest of the book. I think the character had a lot of promise and would have flourished in a better book. I also, surprisingly, liked the military veteran prepper character. I thought his parts of the book were actually handled well, and his characterization was handled in a more well-rounded way than I expected.

Now for...the rest of the book. First of all, if you're going to write a book with "conspiracy" in the title you have got to at some point spell the conspiracy out to the readers in a comprehensible way. Not only does Barry never do this throughout the entire book, every time she attempts to explain the conspiracy I got more confused. At multiple points Ortu Solis (Latin for Rising Sun, and the shadow org of the conspiracy) seems to have entirely conflicting goals! There are historical events that actually happened with competing aims and ideas named next to each other with no attempt to distinguish for the reader who is probably not thoroughly versed in relatively niche American Revolutionary War history that there were any differences between them. This is not only bad writing but bad practice as a supposed post-grad level historian!! But we have only BEGUN to scratch the surface of the nightmare. The aims and idea of Ortu Solis are so confused that at one point, among a paragraph of other things they're said to be responsible for, the book says "and Nixon." Just...Nixon. Just his name. No specifying if they were responsible for his election, had a hand in Watergate, had a hand in exposing Watergate...no! Just...Nixon. Am I supposed to believe that they are responsible for his existence? That cannot be the intention. And yet, I am left to wonder! And I could GO ON! Everything about this part of the book, the actual main point of the book, is completely muddy, under-explained, and nonsensical.

Second, the pacing and plot of the book. At first, I was willing to go along with some pretty rough moments in the pacing of the book because well, it is a book trying to go after the cachet of conspiracy thrillers, maybe Barry is trying a little too hard to emulate them in what should perhaps be a slightly tamer romance book about two academics. And then it became unforgivable when our main characters have a conversation about a plot hole. Right in front of us they have a back and forth about how lucky it is that the antagonist didn't find the important Thing when he was planting something else in the exact spot the important Thing was. And my jaw dropped. Instead of oh, I don't know, fixing the plot hole, Barry just has the most forced, inane conversation happen in front of our eyes like we won't notice?? And the worst thing is, if they hadn't had the conversation, maybe I wouldn't have! But she POINTED OUT the plot hole to me and then TRIED to explain it away so poorly I felt like perhaps Barry thinks her readers are stupid. And the pacing... every time something needs to happen in the book, every time it seems Barry can't figure out how to get her character(s)--it's mostly Jess, because she has a head on her shoulders--into the place in the plot she wants them in, she drops something absolutely wild on the book and forces stakes escalation. It's maddening. This book needed developmental editing so badly I almost wonder if it isn't a second draft lightly edited for typos. And I hate to be so scathing but it's BAD, and once you notice it you can't stop seeing it. And Barry doesn't give you much time to not notice it because she immediately feels she has to up the stakes within the first 20% of the book!

Overall, this reads like a book written during an event like NaNoWriMo, where the first answer that pops into your head for "how to resolve this problem" is always the correct one because the goal is to have 50k written words, not 50k deftly plotted and coherently paced words. But books aren't supposed to get published in that state! I also highly suspect, from the author's note, that the issues with the under-explanation come from a sort of xkcd comic "and quartz of course" style overfamiliarity with the idea; Barry talks about having made up this conspiracy years ago in college as a tongue in cheek way to cope with learning grim truths about American history. I suspect, having thought about it for so long, it has become difficult for her to extract from her brain and explain clearly to other people, because it just makes sense to her. Ah well!

I will say, I do think Barry has plenty of skill as an author, she simply is at perhaps her worst with this book. I'm planning to try out her chess based book Bold Moves and see if I'm able to enjoy that one more, because I really want to give her another chance! But I do not think anyone on earth should read Me, You, & the Conspiracy.

What a beautiful tapestry of a book, all woven around a figure from history that captured the author's imagination and made Arden long to write her a story where she had power. OH I love books!! This is one of the most deftly and cleverly written historical fantasies I've read in a while, complete with all the political scheming your heart could desire, and threaded through with sparkling threads of magic that take your breath away. Courtly romance, mad sorcerers, fae with their secrets to keep, and powerful women matching political wits: it's ALL here. I wish I could have read this a little more slowly and savored it, but alas, my Libby loan is due today and the thought of going back in the hold line without finishing it was UNBEARABLE.

It certainly had it's horrifying moments! But overall it felt very uneven. Some very good moments, like glimpses of the book I wanted it to be, between other moments that felt rushed or incomplete. The character beats don't quite hit, and at times the plot beats feel rushed. Delivered on the horror, and on the main character's fraught familial Everything, but could have done with some developmental editing for structure and pacing.