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As highly as this came recommended to me and as much as I wanted to love this, about 2/3rds of the way through I really started to struggle with this one. This book is essentially for caving sickos (said affectionately) with a sprinkling of psychological thriller, toxic yuri, and a small dash of Tremors. Unfortunately, I found all of these elements outside of the caving very lacking, and I'm just not that into caving. I started struggling where I did because the descriptions of the caves and how they turn stopped making much sense to me (even with the included maps), especially as the MC begins doing a lot of backtracking, and the twists of the psych thriller part did not feel very well enmeshed into the rest of the narrative or compelling, nor did they have any kind of gratifying explanation in the end, they Just Happened and you get to kind of assume if it was a Biology thing or Trauma or Magic or whatever. This is of course not to say that these things always need an explanation, but without a grand reveal they just felt even less compelling than the actual body horror that was going on. All in all, good read but enjoyed it more in theory than in practice.

What an excellently done horror novel from C.G. Drews. I can pinpoint the exact moment in this book I realized that perhaps all was not what it seemed, which is a moment I LOVE having when reading. I will say that I was prepared for most of the content of this book as an autistic person, but the flashback between chapters twenty-three and twenty-four was surprisingly difficult to get through and caught me off-guard for other reasons I can relate to all too well. In the end I would have given this book five stars except for the fact that I believe the Epilogue genuinely makes this a worse story. I think leaving it on a cliff-hanger would have been better than showing what happens there, for reasons I don't want to spoil!

There was a lot I loved about this book. When I was recommended it, I didn't know it was a YA novel and wasn't told much about it, and wasn't sure what to expect. If you were a fan of The Secret Garden growing up but are looking for even more haunting themes, a murder mystery, and what it means to be a disabled queer person under the grip of those who don't have your best interest at hand, it's an excellent read. The only reason I give it 4.5 stars instead of 5 is because there were a few times where it felt like a lot of fast-paced tension had built up with the anticipation of some kind of pay-off only to suddenly be completely forgotten about or snuffed out by one thing or another. But the rest of the book more than makes up for it.