3,75/5

This book was on my radar for a few months. The autistic and bi/pan rec were some of its high sell point, along with the overall nature/cottagegore vibe.
I'm a little sad to say I didn't like it as mucu as I wanted. Not for lack of qualities; the horror creeps on you, there is suspsense and tension, coming from the plot and the characters' relationships; the writing is nice too, and the overall story has potential. But I was somehow left a bit behind and underwhelmed by the explanations and resolution.

I also have to say that Cassie ended up annoying me a lot. Do I understand her struggles? (As much as I can without being sure of being autistic). Yes. But as the story moved forward, I couldn't help but found her a little too surface level. Her putting on her masks was very obvious and deliberate all the time. Her self doubts, when she picked on weird clues, was so high she didmissed them with a lot of strength. And YES I get that this is the point, or part of it. But along with her loosing contact with her friends, it made it hard for me to be super invested in the story or caring about her in the long run. Probably because of some repetitions in the narrative, and an overall quite simple story about pain and feeling like you are losing the people you care about, leading to some very dubious choices.

Still, overall an enjoyable and entertaining stories with much needed representations!