2.5 Too many things were not okay for me in this book, iIt was really difficult to get through.

Not only are her so called "friends" awful, but her parents are even worse. Sooo negative, by the end I skipped the very many conversations with her parents. And I get that some people are sadly like that but it didn't feel like much was being done about it for most of the book.

What hurt me the most though was Pen herself and how she talked about women.
She doesn't want to be a girl because to her, they are too fragile, dumb, can't do anything etc. Not only her friends but she as well were regularly using terms such as "man up", "grow some balls", "don't be such a pussy" and things like that. NOT OKAY. I continued reading hoping those words would be criticized but nope. Never are they even questioned.
What I understood from her explanation of why she liked Blake was because Blake was "not like other girls", not the stereotypically girly-girl.
Yes, there is character development in Pen in how she views herself and other people, great, but she still continues to think and use term which, in my opinion, disrespect women, so not great at all.

The positives of this book: Great brother, diverse book, great f/f relationship AND a great friendship between the girls by the end.
It just wasn't enough for me to forget how I did NOT enjoy the reading experience.