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- Tash🖤4.5. Oh my heart I love them so
----Edit to review Aug 20, 2024 ----
A beautifully done retelling and reimagining of Icarus
A beautiful YA story told in short chapters from Icarus’s point of view as he navigates his relationship with his father, friends and son of his family enemy, Helios.
Icarus is groomed his entire life to be a master thief for his father. Because of this, Icarus keeps everyone at arms lengths, friends specifically made because they were not supposed to have any links to one another that would force him into socialization outside of school. Icarus and his father Angus restore art pieces - but also uses that talent in a vendetta against Angus’s enemy Mr. Black. For years Icarus has been breaking and entering Mr. Black’s home and swapping art pieces for fakes. Until one day he runs into Mr. Black’s son, Helios, who is under house arrest by his estranged father. The two form a tentative friendship that delves further, putting both their lives at risk of their fathers.
I love Icarus as a character. He’s quite to the point in his head as well as his relationships with others. All he is striving for is the end of the tunnel and escape from his father. Even in his loneliness, the strong will keeps him on the path to freedom. Watching him form friendship with different people in his life was a blessing to see. Icarus lives his whole life thinking no one cares, when in fact everyone does.
The queerness of the book was so representative. Watching Icarus come into his identity, falling in love with Helios in stolen conversation. This is a YA book - there is a limitation of what that exploration looks like (FOR GOOD REASON HELLO MINORS!) but it was so eloquently done. The discussion between Icarus and Helios in the bathroom scene?
“You think I’d know art, and not know this?...There have been men like you before we had words for it.”
I cry, I love them so much your honor.