Never thought I would rate a romance 5 stars.

Its literary stylings help. Replete with typical ups and downs, as common throughout the genre as physicality, and lust, it nonetheless triumphs in my mind on several levels. Sure, it has very damaged and possibly suicidal, and most definitely flawed, and heavily chip-shouldered characters, performing in the form of gloriously reprehensible saboteurs of their own happiness. But human, and readable they remain. You will want to know what happens to them, which is all that literary fiction characters can hope for.

Slow to start and even slower to burn its way past your watery eyes, burrowing down into your heart’s soil, rooting, scurrying, and gnawing away at your preconceptions. It does not so much defy its genre as justify it, perhaps. Opinions will differ, as usual, but my guess is, if you give it a chance to impress you, it will, and if you let it wound you, it will, and if you deny the probability that you have felt some of these feelings, then it will linger in memory indefinitely. Is it wish fulfillment? Or is it real life? Most of us will die, never certain.