I’ve never been able to do that. Even after ages staring at myself in the mirror, I’ve only ever been able to muster a constipated sort of grimace.”

this book is very close to my heart because it builds off my lived experiences as someone with psychotic depression, a heavily-stigmatized mental illness that is still poorly understood. i'm so excited to share it with you, and i hope that it reaches the right readers: the ones who have never seen themselves represented in fiction as complex, nuanced people rather than as caricatured villains. for the girls who are tired of being called "crazy." Boring. Boring. Boring. Felt like a Sapphic and dark "Harry Potter" retelling. But a disappointing one. The writing made it harder for me to read. Absolutely nothing was happening, the writing was poor, the characters were weird....can't deal with all these.Not to mention that the few characters we had were one dimensional and they were almost the same. They were needed for the plot, but didn't have enough personality. Not like the mcs were so much better, but at least I had some idea about who they are. Two scenes: one happens in the woods, and one happens in a graveyard. I think those are the scenes I spent the most time mulling over pre-writing (and devoted the most playlist songs to). They’re also the most Aesthetic (with a capital-A). It’s Ellis Haley’s first year at Dalloway, and she has already amassed a loyal following. A prodigy novelist at seventeen, Ellis is a so-called method writer. She’s eccentric and brilliant, and Felicity can’t shake the pull she feels to her. So when Ellis asks Felicity to help her research the Dalloway Five for her second book, Felicity can’t say no. Given her history with the arcane, Felicity is the perfect resource. With queer primary characters, an irresistible gothic atmosphere, and unrelenting creeping dread, this propulsive work of dark academia is both thrilling and thought-provoking."— Publishers Weekly, starred review

trigger/content warnings: death, violence, manipulation and emotional abuse, child neglect (past/offscreen), mental health issues (specifically psychotic depression), substance abuse, suicide references (no actual suicide), references to racist history. The material, on the whole, "does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." [15]But after it happened (if it happened), I had to take a deep breath and convince myself not to dnf it (which I wanted to do more than I could count). There is one thing I despise more than being in the head of someone I hate and that is when the mc takes a 180, and it turns out she had an information this whole time, but I didn't know about it despite being in their head. While it is uncertain whether or not Ellis can be trusted, Felicity can’t help being drawn in by her and her unique charisma. The Dalloway Five and the magic of Godwin used to be her obsession, but it seems like Ellis now has her whole attention and that the feeling is reciprocated. We thus follow them as they entangle themselves in darkness and magic, and slowly lose sense of what is real or not. I absolutely had issues putting this book A smart, layered, thought-provoking thriller about female desire and the intimacy of violence.” — Ava Reid, author of The Wolf and the Woodsman