Dark, gritty, believable, painful. The imagery and the characters in this story continue to echo inside me after I've finished reading. They're flawed and broken, twisted and fascinating. Rufus has such an almost tangential morality, literally in some ways on a tangent to where he should be. And Augustus strives to be more than he is, more than the monster inside him. They care so deeply for each other, and yet cannot stop hurting each other, because their relationship isn't good for either of them.