This book is hard to review. I love Akwaeke Emezi's writing style, if there is one thing they can do, it's write. However, I found this one hard to read. 

I so wish that the two main characters were not related. I found the incest storyline very off-putting. It made it impossible for me to feel happy about their "love story", it just feels traumatizing and wrong. 

This story could have been beautiful and heartbreaking had the love interests not been so closely related. I feel that the incest doesn't add anything to the story and actually takes away from it. I would have felt more connected to the characters, and rooted for them had they not been related. It would have been so easy to make Osita a best friend instead of a first cousin. A first cousin that was raised as Viveks brother and that he often calls brother. 

I am baffled why Akwaeke chose this dynamic. It makes me wary to read more of their work. 
I also find it weird to make a trans character that has some type of mental illness going on, also be in an incestuous relationship. Not that it is right, but people already view trans people as taboo and wrong, so I find it strange to add a taboo and strange relationship to the mix. I don't know, something about that feels weird to me. 

We don't get any insight, information, or answer about what what type of mental illness going on with Vivek. She has these black outs that get brought up but not explained which I found frustrating. I wanted to know what that was about and why she has no recollection of these episodes. 

This book was just not it for me. I liked Vivek the most out all the characters, but I really had no favorites, the cast of characters was interesting to say the least. 

1 star for good writing, 1 star for well fleshed out characters. The incest ruined this one for me. I so wish they made the simple change to make them best friends instead of first cousins, I just could not connect.