I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. I honestly feel very indifferent. I love this author and her stylistic writing, her words flow and have almost like a poetic feel sometimes. But it was a little too much at times and held the plot back, making this feel very slow sometimes.

Highlights:
- The setting. I love the hiking and outdoorsy vibes, knowing that half of the danger is the elements and terrain.
- The found family element that Emlyn had established with Varden and Rev.
- Varden. Just in general. Varden was a highlight.
- The idea of the flashbacks to help us fill in the gaps of Emlyn and Tyler's past was good. A bit too stretched out, but I liked this format.

Reasons this book didn't work for me:
- I found Emlyn's trajectory of falling for Tyler again to be completely unnecessary. Like if a man leaves you for dead, he is not worth your time anymore.
- I was bored. While I liked the adventurous hiking through the woods, it went on for way too long and I just wanted something to happen.
- The twist, when we find out what was really going on with Janessa/Bush, was underwhelming. It truly felt like it came out of nowhere and built upon a storyline that I only sort of cared about in the first place.

The fact that Janessa thought that she could accomplish her goal of exposing Bush on her own, and also felt that it was necessary that SHE do it on her own... it felt very forced and unrealistic.

- This attempted to give me a love story, but it all fell flat for me.
- Yes, I was curious to know what was really going on, but I honestly didn't care all that much and, after finishing, I would have been content to just dnf and not find out the ending...