I admit that I only read this book because of all the negative attention it has gotten on TikTok. I love dark fiction, and I am more likely to pick up a book the more people tell me to not read it. I’m attracted to controversy and stories that most people say shouldn’t be told. I love to read stories from reprehensible people, and I love to read stories about reprehensible people. That being said, do not read this book if you have triggers relating to incest. Content warning for incest, depictions of teenagers having sex, physical parental abuse, drug abuse, and mentions of homophobia. I could get into the nuances of writing, reading, and exploring taboo concepts in fiction, but I want to mostly focus on how depiction doesn’t equal real life endorsement and how there seems to be a serious new wave of puritans that unintentionally (and intentionally) advocate for censorship. I would get into how (some) people cope with their trauma by exploring it through dark fiction and the arguments and counterarguments for and against that, but that is a much larger conversation that would overtake and overshadow this review of a singular taboo book, and frankly, I don’t want to delve deeply into my own personal trauma publicly in order to justify my point of view. People clutch their pearls and seek out moral justifications in order to explain their dislike, disgust and hatred of certain stories, but I think most people should just embrace that they can dislike books, stories and ideas without inventing some way to shame authors and readers for exploring dark, taboo and morally ambiguous (and morally reprehensible) stories in fiction. It’s okay to be disgusted by things without creating an elaborate excuse to justify your own perceived moral superiority to others. Readers who enjoy dark fiction aren’t condoning and endorsing these things in real life. The most popular argument against this type of fiction is that it “romanticizes” these types of ideas, but my counter argument to that is that most morally reprehensible protagonists and people don’t see themselves as the villain of their own stories, and it’s interesting and more realistic to read stories from the perspective of darker and morally grey characters in order to better understand their minds and motivations without being colored by how others would (and should) see them. If there is a problem with romanticization, it lies with people who choose to romanticize morally wrong relationships in real life, and not with the author for depicting it or the readers for reading it. Just because you read a book depicting dark subjects (murder, rape, taboo, etcetera.) and enjoy the story doesn’t mean you condone or endorse those acts in real life. The word “problematic” and the obsession with moral panic has caused severe brain rot in the critical thinking skills of the mainstream book community. The idea that art shouldn’t depict anything “problematic” is a slippery slope leading to censorship and is the death of nuance. Not only is the idea that we should only read books with sanitized content and “morally good” stories completely disingenuous to real life and storytelling as a whole, it’s painfully boring. This is truly “maybe the curtains are just blue” and all its consequences. Media literacy is already in massive decline, so I honestly don’t expect most people to understand stories that aren’t just about “good guys vs. bad guys”, and I don’t expect most people to understand stories depicting unapologetically morally reprehensible people and concepts, especially when the story doesn’t go out of its way to spoon feed the reader reminders about how these things are vile and wrong in real life every five seconds. I think people who are vehemently against the depiction of dark and twisted ideas in fiction will be very surprised to learn that these ideas (and the morbid curiosity to explore these ideas in fiction) won’t disappear if books like these were to be banned. I don’t want to only read books that are approved by the general public. I don’t even like the general public. Now for the actual review of the story: this book was much better than I was led to believe, and not just because the negative controversy surrounding it lowered my expectations enough for it to make a positive impression. The writing is much better than I expected. When I read the negative reviews for this book, I expected the writing to resemble something from a cheap erotica, but I was surprised to see that this story focused on giving its characters depth and layers (in the first 65%, at least). I loved the twins as characters. I saw a bit of my younger self in both Cyrus and Colson. They grew up too fast and I related to that deeply. I loved the focus on mental health in this book. I loved how each chapter changed first-person narration between the three protagonists. I loved the internal thoughts of all three characters, but I did prefer the twins. I was surprised at how much I immediately cared for the twins, especially when we learn of how their birth parents treated them. A big part of the backlash surrounding this book is the claim that this book sexualizes minors, but the growing sexual relationship between the twins when they are younger is depicted in the same way that other coming-of-age books and television shows depict teenage sexuality. It is messy and juvenile, and the twins acknowledge how morally wrong incest is. As someone who struggled with intense hypersexuality in my early teens and during puberty, I thought that the depiction of juvenile sexuality was true to my (and my friends’) early sexual experiences (minus the twin incest). Without getting too much into it, I do remember when guys I knew as a teenager told me about their taboo fantasies and experiences, so I didn’t perceive the twins’ growing sexuality as unrealistic or inherently sinister. Their individual sexualities growing and manifesting into incestuous sexual experimentation was depicted as a culmination of complicated juvenile sexual feelings, mental health, familial abuse, social isolation, and is the direct result of a codependent relationship between two growing boys. From what I’ve seen about consensual incestuous relationships in documentaries, a relationship like the one the twins have are a complicated psychosocial development as a result from complex factors surrounding the twins’ environment and upbringing. While morally wrong by society’s standards, I think the author did a decent job at depicting the psychosocial factors that would lead two twin brothers to form a relationship like this. I agree with the readers who claim that the female characters in this story feel like caricatures. Just because the female characters aren’t the main focus or are depicted as abusive doesn’t mean that they are unrealistic secondary characters but Carla’s character wasn’t explored or developed as deeply as the other characters, and I think she wasn’t written well as a complicated emotionally abusive mother. Tauren’s character was interesting, even though I found his perspective to be less engaging than the twins’. His character isn’t introduced as predatory or as someone who only wants to sleep with his stepsons, and I appreciate that the author fleshed out his character as a person rather than make him a twisted abusive stepfather caricature. Predatory men aren’t always outwardly sinister in real life, so I appreciated the humanized version of a man like this. It felt realistic. I liked that we saw Tauren’s internal struggle with his growing attraction to his stepsons. I was much younger than the twins when I had my first sexual experiences with older men, and very few of those men that I had been intimate with ever had a duty of care (or sense of moral responsibility) the way that Tauren did. I liked the way the author depicted Tauren’s kind surface personality and his inner primal dominant side that he hid from himself. The stepfather and stepsons dynamic is depicted better than most relationships in fiction that have similar age-gaps and power dynamics. I understand if this type of relationship would make readers uncomfortable, but this particular dynamic is nothing new for fans of dark fiction, taboo romances and thrillers. If you’ve ever seen a stepdad/stepchild storyline or a teacher/student storyline in fiction, then you know what to expect here. Despite how I’m using this book review as a way to explain my feelings on censorship and dark fiction, I did still have criticisms, mostly focused on what this book could have been rather than what it was. This book didn’t need to be as long as it was. It could have easily shaved off 25% of the book with a few changes. I felt like this book had four star potential until I started to lose interest during the hotel scene towards the end. This book started as dark and complex, and in my opinion it fell apart slowly as it crawled to the end. I was completely detached and disinterested by the time I made it to the epilogues. This book had potential on paper and could have said so much while using this dark story as a vehicle, but it ultimately ends up feeling like none of this added up to anything meaningful or significant. I would have preferred if this book had solely focused on the twins and their taboo relationship and their personal traumas. I do feel like this story would have benefitted if the stepfather storyline was completely cut from it. The first part of the story focusing on the twins’ characters and relationship could have unfolded in a way that explored a dark codependent relationship between two brothers and the way that their traumas bonded them and molded them. I would have loved a story that flashed forward into the future and seeing how the twins try to make something out of their lives and find some sense of normalcy after all the pain they went through. If this book had to have the stepfather storyline included, it could have been a great opportunity to explore male generational trauma and sexual abuse, with Tauren and the twins realizing their relationship is a direct result of their own personal demons and it could have ended with the three parting ways and seeking therapy and a new life. A big criticism I have outside of the world of the book is the way that this book was marketed in some places. The marketing surrounding this book shouldn’t have revolved around being a dark taboo romance and should have focused on the dark fiction aspect. A large part of the backlash surrounding this book revolves around the fact that the twins are only 17 when they start a sexual relationship with their stepfather, and while that criticism is valid, it’s no different from books and television shows that depict similar age gaps and relationships. The idea that this book contributes to harmful stereotypes of gay men just doesn’t sit right with me. There are gay men out there that prefer young boys, just like there are straight men who prefer young girls. That’s a patriarchal problem, not a homosexual one. Anyone who chooses to believe that all gay men are predators after learning about stories like this were always going to have homophobic views in the first place. I think that it is interesting that media that depicts the same or similar relationships (or even worse relationships, i.e., Game of Thrones) never receive the same level and amount of backlash and controversy the way that this book did; this book does a great job at depicting the moral ambiguity of the storyline with more authenticity and depth than most network television shows. The characters constantly comment on how their relationships were fucked up, wrong, twisted and how they were bad and morally reprehensible people. I think it’s very interesting and ironic that readers will find the depiction of certain taboos acceptable while decrying others. A big criticism of this book is that some readers love taboo romances and dark fiction, but this apparently goes beyond taboo. That’s factually incorrect. The definition of taboo is a social custom that is prohibited or restricted by society and deviates from the acceptable norms. People try to distance this book from the taboo romance genre because it makes them uncomfortable that this kind of taboo is in the same wheelhouse as their favorite dark romances. If people truly want to believe that the depiction of certain taboos in fiction are inherently problematic because it’s wrong in real life, it would be incredibly hypocritical if they didn’t also advocate for the censorship of all depictions of every taboo in media. It’s valid to feel gross, disgusted and repulsed by taboo content, it’s even valid to feel wary about people who love dark fiction, but people claiming that authors and readers who enjoy dark fiction are bad people who are endorsing and condoning real world harm are painfully obtuse. Overall, I felt like this book wasn’t as bad or harmful as people made it out to be and it made me reflect on the moral panic in the book community. I recommend this book for fans of dark taboo dramas and dark controversial fiction.