More like 2.5 stars but anyway.

There is some good in this book: When it comes to the stories of the secondary characters, like Jazmyn, Marco, Richard etc, most of them are actually pretty morally grey (unlike the main one) as well as more interesting than the main conflict. I liked that the main love interest was wheelchair bound, because you don’t see that often

With this subject matter it’s no surprise that this book is really divisive. I went into this thinking it would be a nuanced discussion of call out culture, but I was wrong

I want to preface this by saying that I do somewhat agree with the message of this book? I don’t think people who do what Winter did deserve death threats or rape threats or to be made fun of for their appearance or anything of the sort. But I do think that if a school or institution wants to punish someone who represents (or would represent) them for saying something bigoted can do so if they want to. Because free speech doesn’t mean nobody can get offended by your words - it means you can’t get arrested for them, and the government can’t do anything about it.

But holy shit, I was so annoyed that the book just seemed to treat Winter like she really hadn’t done anything, and that she shouldn’t have to apologize, and that people (like Jason, but also those online who wrote about how offensive her tweet was) were just overreacting. I feel like with her final apology the author tried to? Not imply that? But with Winter spending the rest of the book saying she and everyone else at the rehab camp thing didn’t have to apologize was? It just rubbed me the wrong way

Other than those things, here are other things I just absolutely hated: Winter and her friends making fun of Jason’s girlfriends for wanting to date someone who doesn’t care about them instead of teaching their friend not to be an ass (or at least condemning him?), the personal agenda the reporter seemed to have against Winter and her family, how at the end of the book we are supposed to sympathize with a journalist(?) who knowingly outed gay politicians (while earlier in the book a secondary character is a gay politician whose life is ruined when his affair comes to light) with this being equated to making an insensitive but somewhat clueless joke that was ultimately unintentional, because the journalist was receiving hate online. I kid you not.

So, I kinda regret picking this up and being excited by it and actually finishing it. It’s honestly kinda hard to get me to dislike a book - and I honestly don’t dislike this one, because the intent behind it is pretty good? And while intent does matter, saying “I had good intentions!” Doesn’t erase the many many flaws of this book.