Rowan and Circus both are such deep characters, Circus with seeking attention online for not feeling so lonely after his parents passed away and Rowan with all the standard christian-homophobic family background. They both had tons to unpack, but it was described so reasonable and empathically, I loved it! Especially Rowan's doubts and selfworth struggles because of internalized homophobia were nothing I've ever read in that extend, and I've read a lot of queer stories so far. That's something Saxon really succeeded with. Big trigger warning regarding homophobic families including conversion therapy and full-blown hatred tho.

This is one of the books I should've dnfd early on because over all this was just too much struggle for me to enjoy any other aspect of it. The characters were okay, personally I found them very unlikeable but i can see how they might work for others. The idea of friends that had a bad thing happen and meet again sounded good but it just didn't work for me. If you like reading about the problems of coming out in a small town setting with religion involved then this might be for you tho! The writing itself was very nice and easy to follow. This just wasn't for me at all, the only part I enjoyed were the other friends and they didn't appear a whole lot.