Quick Stats
Overall: 4 stars
Characters: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Chronic Illness Rep: 5/5
POC Rep: 1/5

Content/Trigger Warnings: discussions of chronic illness, depression, suicide, bad POC rep, and some mild descriptions of blood/gore

I’m just going to start this review by saying what this book is—and what it isn’t. It IS #ownvoices chronic illness rep. It IS NOT, I repeat, IT IS NOT #ownvoices South Asian rep, or POC rep at all.
I guess, before we get into the review any further, I should also let you know what I am. I am chronically ill. But, my skin is the color of Wonder Bread. My ancestry is just a melting pot of Europe. So it is in no way my place to comment on the portrayal of the Indian characters in this book—so I’m not going to.

Please check out these reviews for information on that:

Aparna R.'s reviewtalks a lot about the racist implications in the cover, and why white people shouldn’t be writing books where the main character is POC, because of issues and complexities POC individuals face that we can’t understand. Overall, she explains the problems with this book--and similar ones--very well.

I struggled a lot with how to review this. I requested an ARC before I was aware of the problematic elements. But since I requested an ARC, I felt obligated to read and review it. I actually wanted to hate this book. I wanted it to be badly written and for the chronic illness rep to suck. Then it would have been easy, right? I could have just give it a 1 star, scathing review.

But the problem is, I didn’t hate it. I loved it. The chronic illness rep is the best I’ve read outside of Sick Kids in Love, the story was perfectly weird and interesting, and the writing was fantastic. So I’m not really sure what to do. I really just tried to factor in everything and average my ratings.

I’m not going to tell you to read this book, but I’m not going to tell you not to, either.

Now, for the actual review:

I’m going to focus on the chronic illness aspects of the book, since, in that area, I am an own voices reviewer.
The rep is so good. I absolutely ADORED every single member of the group chat, and I really appreciated the group chat plotline. Such a big part of my own journey towards accepting my illnesses was making other chronically ill friends, and like Priya, I met them online. Unlike Priya, however, none of them are werewolves (unfortunately).
I also really liked how the author addressed the feeling of a flare. That was really resonated with me, how Priya talked about feeling so stupid for thinking she was really better. That’s a feeling I’m much too familiar with, and Kristen O’Neal put that feeling—and so many others that those of us struggling with chronic illness feel—in a really validating way.

So, in short, I loved this book. But but has some seriously problematic issues when it comes to it’s POC rep. Read at your own risk.