I was shocked to see all of the four and five-star ratings for this book. I mean, yes, everyone is perfectly entitled to their own opinion, but I just don't get it.

What I liked:

1. Madison. She was my favorite character in the book and I loved her friendship with Jubilee.

2. Jubilee loving books and working in a library. As a book lover myself, I love reading books about people who love books.

What I didn't like:

Everything else.

Kidding, kidding (kind of)

1. Jubilee's 'allergy'.
First of all, this isn't a real allergy. However, I didn't care much about if that was realistic or not, in the beginning. But as I continued to read, it just didn't add up. If she was allergic to human skin cells, I'm not sure how she would even be able to function in society. Skin cells slough off people all of the time without us noticing a thing. They would be everywhere. We're supposed to believe that even something as innocuous as wearing a shirt someone else wore could put her into anaphylactic shock, but she's just fine sitting in someone else's car and home and working around people all day is just fine. Having people over to her home is no problem whatsoever. Having food delivered (groceries and take out) isn't ever brought up as something that could be potentially problematic. We're supposed to believe that as long as she wore gloves, she would be fine. I can suspend disbelief when we're talking about a fantasy or science fiction book, but this is supposed to be realistic fiction, and I just couldn't. The woman didn't even have epi-pens on her, for crying out loud. And at one point, she tries to say she doesn't need them. That makes no sense, especially for someone who is supposedly as afraid as she is of having an allergy attack.

2. Mental illness representation.
Jubilee tells us that she suffers from agoraphobia. Is she ever actually diagnosed by a doctor? No. Because she was unable to leave her home for nearly a decade to actually GO to the doctor. A decade. She literally never left her home for nine years. Had zero in-person contact with another human for nearly a decade. And at the beginning of the book, she is terrified to leave her home. But since her mother passed away and isn't paying for her survival anymore, she has to leave the house to get a job.
So she does. Sure, it takes a chapter or so before she's able to get past her porch, but after that point there is almost no mention of her agoraphobia again, until the end of the book when she ends up on an inadvertent road trip. And then it's more a throwaway line about how funny it is that just a couple months ago she couldn't leave her house and look what she can do now!
THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF MENTAL ILLNESS. She never consults a therapist to discuss her phobia and what is obviously anxiety. She takes her friend's prescription xanax a couple of times, which is played as a big joke, but never even thinks that maybe she should talk to someone and get a real diagnosis. Things like agoraphobia, anxiety, and depression don't just go away because you try real hard. That's not how it works.

3. Eric. Also, the romance.
He's the worst. I really disliked him. He was a crappy parent to his daughter, and he was a crappy adopted parent to Aja. Aja is acting out and it never once occurs to this moron that it could possibly be because he's never properly grieved his parent's death? Really?! He actually tells the therapist that he's forced to take Aja to (after Aja threatens to blow up a bully's bookbag at school) that Aja never cries, so he assumed he was fine. Fine? With the death of both of his parents?!
The romance between Eric and Jubilee just fell so flat with me. I saw it described as a 'slow burn'. I don't think I would use that term. I would say it was non-existent. They had zero chemistry. I also didn't like that Jubilee completely blew off the idea of a possible cure until she was with Eric. As if that would be the only reason she would want to be cured of such an awful affliction.

4. The end.
I hated this ending so much. So so much.

First of all, it jumps to seven years in the future. Why does it jump so far? Wouldn't it have been more realistic to jump maybe two or three years? We're supposed to believe that Eric and Jubilee are still in love with each other after seven years of no contact? Ooookayyyyy...
They have no contact, then they see each other after all that time and start making out with each other's faces after about five seconds. And then the book ends.
Blech.
And this is after they've established that Michael has feelings for her and that she might have some feelings for him as well. Why on Earth even include that, just to undo it two pages later? Actually, I know why. All through the book, there are men who are physically attracted to Jubilee. Madison's ex. Eric. Michael. Apparently we're supposed to think of her as a desirable person. And the way the author decided to get that across to us is by having every man in the book in love with her. That's more unrealistic than her allergy to human skin cells.

Other odds and ends:

1. There is a lot of girl-hate in this book.

2. There are many inconsistencies with characterization here, especially regarding Jubilee's mother. one minute she's a chain-smoking, tight-clothes-wearing, homewrecking slut who abandoned her daughter and the next she's a doting mother crawling into bed with her baby girl in a nightgown that covers her from head to toe just so she can hold her.

I just can't believe that this book was published in 2017 and has this many rave reviews.