Joy is in love with her best friend Malcolm. Malcolm is maybe in love with Summer. Summer’s best friend is Fox. Fox can’t stand Joy. So their weekend getaway should be perfect.

I really, really struggled with this book. There are some things that were just not going to work for me: I think that third person present is A Choice and not the right one for this book, there are some details I’m still fuzzy on (where exactly do Joy and Malcolm work, and what kind of app is she modeling on?), and I definitely think this book would have benefitted from multiple POVs.

But it’s personal, too. I’m also on the record as finding books where characters seem determined to sabotage themselves as very tough reads for me. Maybe some of it is seeing myself in them, a lot of it is loving basically every character I read and wanting only the best and softest for them. Joy and Malcolm’s relationship has certainly drifted into toxicity, and they’re both struggling with the ramifications of that, and her desire to maybe sabotage his romance with Summer was rough for me. I think that this book came at a time for me personally, too, that made this situation really untenable for me. 

Many people will see themselves in this book, and I wish I could, but not right now. Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC.