Look at this cover. Doesn’t it scream  Valentine’s Day?? Do yourself a favor and pick up another one though. There are plenty of books with hearts on the cover.

The only reason I didn’t give this one star is because I didn’t regret finishing it. One stars are for books I wish I DNFed, but this one was just very frustrating.

At first, I was eating the cringe up. I was listening to the audiobook, so maybe that’s why I didn’t mind it as much. However, the cringe never went away or got easier to listen to. The main character was constantly saying “my dude” and using other slang that made me crinkle my nose. Aside from that, she was also really annoying. 

I love a hyper fixation, don’t get me wrong. I also love true crime and think the point of her dissertation was amazing. She’s a PHD student and working on her presentation throughout the whole novel. There were only two parts I loved about this book and that was one of them. I liked hearing about the true crime elements and her takes on them. In the same breath, she was annoying as hell when she would bring them up at uninvited times. It wasn’t cute.

She also used her childhood trauma (valid) and her obsession with true crime (not so valid) to refute love. She never thought that love was for her, so obviously she had to be a horrible human when she was actually starting to catch feelings. She treated Sam like garbage and I hated it because, even though Sam was a tad underdeveloped in my opinion, he was a great person that she was shitting all over.

The other shining light of this book were Conner and Shani. I really loved them and their dynamic. I wish it was their story that I was reading. I also liked the library involvement. Why were the side characters more developed than the main characters?? Ugh.

The tone of this book was also very silly and quirky, which is why I liked it at first. But when things started to get spicy (if we can even call it that), it seems way off base. The language didn’t match the tone at all and it felt very disjointed. 

One of my biggest  😑 moments is a spoiler and happens at the very end.

That big dissertation that she worked her ass on the entire book? The one where she finally drums up the courage and asks people to support her for? We didn’t even get to see her presentation. We know she graduated because of a one liner from the epilogue, but that’s it. And also, we don’t know where she’s going to end up living or where she’s going to get a job. We’re left in this gray area with so many untied strings. Biggest pet peeve in books.

Overall, I hated this book. I’m so happy for you if you were able to find some fun in it though!