4 stars ⭐️ Beautiful poetic language, sadly lacking something. I absolutely adored Groff's writing style and the way she explored the story and told it in changing perspectives and words that resemble more poetry than prose. However, I can't shake the feeling that the characters and plot were a bit too blunt.

This book was really hyped and I thought it would really wow me with excellent writing and wonderful characters and their description. The story was okay, I honestly struggled to get through and it almost pushed me into a reading slump. Mathilde as a person is just spiteful and the writing didn’t help with the sympathy/empathy bit for her. Lotto was a really shallow character and apart from being told repeatedly he is not handsome, there isn’t much substance to him. Yes he was described as being an artist and playwright who wrote jaw dropping pieces of work, it felt mostly vague and without depth. The other characters also didn’t get much mention, it would have been nice to read more about how Rachel grew up and the contrast with Lotto. I don’t know if I’m a 3⭐️ or 2.5⭐️.. I think I’ll be back to re-evaluate. All in all not bad just excessively long, and not really pointed. 2.5⭐️s it is… Edit: absolutely forgettable book, down to 1.5⭐️s