I am a sucker for dark academia, so it’s no wonder I picked this up. It is a wonder that I finished it. The plot was just plain ridiculous.

Who on God’s green earth thinks that seducing a rapist so you can trick him into getting arrested is a good idea? And it drove me crazy that Jessica wore the same unique dresses as her sister and Jay, this brilliant professor who was supposedly the smartest man alive  didn’t notice??

Besides the plot holes and general silliness, it lacked the eerie, intimate, and nuanced relationships and group dynamics that make this sub genre so enticing. You can’t just make up a Law and Literature class, slap a mediocre mystery in a small college, throw in some “literary” discussions that do nothing but prove you’ve read the SparkNotes summary of To Kill a Mockingbird, and call it dark academia. And

the fact that the whole time Jessica is addressing her life story at great personal risk to someone with  no connection to the plot whatsoever

  proved how poorly planned this book was. I do appreciate Hennigan trying to take a feminist angle, but it felt cliched, overdone, and dated.  Do not expect a big reveal. In fact, do not expect much of anything from this book. This is not for fans of TSH, or even IWWV. This is baby’s first dark academia.