So... nothing about this book was bad, it's Shaun David Hutchinson.
But to be honest I felt more emotions when the book mentioned characters from Shaun's other books than I was when the characters from this book did anything.

Here's what I think:
Shaun David Hutchinson always has a powerful, thought-provoking way of writing. Topics such as friendship, mental health, abuse, suicide, racial gender and sexual diversity are always brilliantly woven into his books. And I appreciated that in this book too (cuban MC, muslim best-friend, girls in love, the word bisexual proudly used and never questioned, mention of a trans character, and a questioning ace, YAY!).
Oh, and also teenagers having to deal with saving the world apparently ("It's always the end of the world, isn't it?").

Anyone who has also read and loved any other book by SDH must have been pleasently surprised to see characters from those books pop up in this one. I felt so many emotions in that hospital scene!!!! I even found myself counting and looking forward to the next reference (as shown in my progress comments).
And then I realised that was just it: I cared more about unimportant things than the actual plot and characters I was meant to care about.

I didn't feel particularly attached to the characters. Even though there clearly was depth to each character, not many were likeable.
Didn't like the love interest who was selfish and not very loveable towards Elena; the ex-boyfriend was a creep; family could have been interesting but we only focused on the one guy who doesn't deserve a story.
The one redeeming character is Elena's best friend Fadil. Their friendship was great to witness but at the same time I would have loved more of them and their feelings for each other. MORE OF THEM! Less of all the rest that felt quite bland and made this 400 page book feel reeeeeeally long.
And our main character? Well... I didn't feel like we got much out of her.

Elena didn't feel rushed to do anything, and most of the book was just her questioning wat was going on and if she should do something about it (but not really trying to dig to find answers), and all the people around her telling her how she should deal with this incredibly important issue (which didn't feel *that* important).
And just when I thought we were getting to an interesting part, the book ended.

Because of that, I didn't have that urge to read "one more" every time I finished chapter, and in my opinion, that's the way I should feel when reading a book I enjoy.

As I said at the beginning, in no way is this book bad.
It's a character-driven slowly built story that makes you think about life, just like Shaun David Hutchinson does is We Are The Ants. THAT book however, makes you feel for the characters and their own stories and shows more development and love and feeling than The Apocalypse Of Elena Mendoza did for me.