Jess’s Reviews > Katabasis > Status Update

Blood Over Bright Haven explores similar themes of unhealthy academia, prejudice, and oppressive system etc but I enjoyed that much more 🧑🏻‍🦲

I gotta be honest — I don’t think this was for me. The characters, the plot structure, the setting. I knew this was a “dark academia” novel, so some of that is in me, bc I know that’s not my thing. However, I LOVED Babel by the same author. It’s just… hell being a university campus… as a HUGE mythology, folklore, & classicist nerd, I’m just not into it.

So all the lore reveals about Alice & Peter… don’t make me care about them that much more. I sympathize with the events, but I’m not more invested in their fates tbh. I think I’m just at a point in my life where emotionally unavailable adults bore me. Like girl. Get over yourself!

This story opens rather abruptly, which in & of itself isn’t an issue. However, the way information is being revealed over time isn’t landing for me bc idrc about Alice or Peter. So between that & some of the info dumping at the start (which has admittedly decreased) I’m kinda bored ngl.