tag yourself: •brooding grouchy dominating groundskeeper with a weakness for mouthy brats, dirty smiles, & blushing •plucky optimist out for an adventure who desperately needs (1) attention & (2) to be pet & (3) answers •bratty but sweet bunny who mostly needs to be pampered but would love a chance to direct & control their friends in complicated sex games •spiky & obsessive drama queen/king who needs to be worshipped & adored but also hunted down & taught a lesson in the meanest way you can

__anyways!

i went back & forth between giving this a 2 (for the frankly nonexistent plot) & a 4 (literally just for the lush prose & drama of it all) so i am going to make no one happy & give it a 3.

the plot in this book exists solely to prop up the pinterest-board-assembled characters & give them each a moment of suffering & a moment of winning. nothing is happening the entire book aside from heated stares, board games, some light voyeurism, & many dramatic pauses. i have finished it & read many other posts & still don’t really understand the “curse”, its consequences, or its origin.

after saying all of that, though, i somehow still liked it? ish? the dynamics are fun & sexy & tense, the grounds are deffo haunted, & i will be watching s.t. gibson’s insta for quotes/aesthetics/memes about this book for a while