This YA book was a great read
4.50 Stars. This book! While I go into every book hopeful, this book was much better than I ever expected. I just had one of my worst book slumps in over a decade and this was the book that played a big role in getting me out of it. This reminded me of everything that I love in a good contemporary YA, and it was just the book that I needed. It’s not a perfect book, it had a few bumps, but damn if I didn’t love just about all of it. Finding great debut authors is something I really enjoy and I’m happy to say that Marie now goes on that list. This book didn’t get as much of that YA hype I would have expected, but what a great surprise this ended up being.
If you follow my reviews you will know I’m a sucker for a well-written, first-person story. I love really being in a character’s head to the point that you can feel everything they are going through. It’s a different and much deeper experience than third person can sometimes be and this book was the perfect example of it. All that teenage angst and drama that I want in a contemporary YA was here and boy did it make me feel. I am actually typing this with swollen eyes, barely able to see my computer screen since I could not stop crying. I had to change rooms, while reading, just to be closer to the tissues since this book affected me so much. Once the 50% hits, it is almost non-stop emotion until the end. And like I said before, it’s exactly the kind of feels I’m looking for in this type of YA book.
While there was so much good here, there were a few newbie bumps. Honestly, if Marie is already writing this good now, it makes me super excited for what is to come. Anyway, one slight issue I had was I felt like the book was a tad off to have taken place in 2022. It doesn’t feel dated per se, but I felt it would have been a better fit if this book’s setting had taken place even just five years ago. I felt like some of the terms and just certain things the main character didn’t know felt off to me. Again, if it was a handful of years ago I would have understood, but teenagers now are so much more knowledgeable about sexuality and gender than my generation ever was. I thought all the rep in this book was great, including all the different types of queer characters and some we don’t get to see in books as much, so I don’t want to take away from that. I just felt like our main character was more clueless than she should have been to have this book take place in 2022.
TLDR: Overall, this book was a great read. It fit what I look for and love about YA’s perfectly. I want a contemporary YA book to make me feel and that is exactly what this book did. I would absolutely recommend this to YA fans, especially if you have a box of tissues at the ready. This book is very emotional and got to me often, but it is not depressing or dark. It felt real and the connection you have to the main character is just so well done that you go through her journey with her. This was really well written for a debut, or any book in general, and Marie is now on my list of authors to watch.
A copy was given to me for review.
