It took me so long to finish The Long Game. Not because it is bad. To me it is far from it. 

But because Ilya hit so close to home I frequently had to put the book down to cry 

We don’t have the same story at all (apart from being queer), and I would never compare his struggles or what is at stake for him to what is for me. But fuck… the feelings portrayed there, the way he thinks, feels the constant mental tiredness, the need to hang onto something (or someone too in his case) to keep yourself from just thinking… 

I’m recovering and in therapy so I manage to work on all that myself but I couldn’t help feel so strongly about him all through this book in particular.

Don’t get me wrong, I freaking love Shane . He has his own demons to deal with, his own mental struggles that I believe are needed to be represented so we, as a society, can better understand and accompany it. And how he is so wrongly treated by some in that book is horrifying.