I think I'm definitely enamored with this book! I loved the characters and their developing dynamics, the plot, everyone's motives! Who was the killer part wasn't much of a mystery, or at least I could guess early on, but I also don't think what makes this book great the mystery element. It is how well the Shakespearean elements and the essence of tragedy are blended with the rest of the story and how you can relate to all of the characters at least a little bit.
We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.
I first picked this collection up at a night I was staying up and very sad and stressed in general. Back then, I didn't like the poems a lot. They were by no means bad, but I wasn't drawn to any of them either. Now, fast-forward two months, I pick it up again and this time read on a lazy Saturday afternoon where it's cloudy and cold outside and suddenly something clicks. Poems are much more beautiful than I previously though, every line brave, sincere and powerful. And from the beginning till the end, not in a weakening fashion. Quite the opposite, getting stronger with each page.
It was a three star until the last chapters and the epilogue, but I actually loved this ending to a chosen one trope!! It was just, at first I was expecting a more humorous approach to classical tropes and Harry Potter and found it too similar instead of that, but as the story progressed the differences got more pronounced.
The character arcs were nice, the main relationship was really cute (though I'll never understand why Baz felt this way toward Simon in the first place) and as I said already, the ending was really good!!