This was a pretty great emotional rollercoaster, exactly the kind you might except from a YA book that leans hard into the messy, confusing aspects of growing up. I really liked all the friendships and the great relationship the MC had with her sisters. The characters are somewhat archetypical, but there are twists on familiar tropes. The most prominent example is Irene, the LI: she is first introduced as the practically run-of-the-mill mean girl/queen bee, but the more she opens up over the course of the story, the more depths and layers she reveals. She’s honestly my favorite, and a part of me wishes her POV was included in the book, except I also really enjoyed getting to know her through Scottie’s somewhat distorted perception specifically, so the wishing isn’t very strong.

There was a point in the book when I started getting really annoyed with Scottie and how manipulative she was being. Everyone went all about her ex-girlfriend was toxic and bad and had hurt her badly, but with the way Scottie treated Irene and really everyone around her, how was she better? With the way things seemed to be shaping up, it was almost like the narrative expected me to side with Scottie’s bad choices, but there was also Irene pointing out the most non-okay things, even if she largely went along with them at that point, and a bunch of side characters who seemed to be the kind of people who wouldn’t approve of Scottie’s actions if they understood the full picture, so I read on and was rewarded with some great moments of fallout and realization.

Yes, that was the part of the story that was the least romcommy and pretty painful altogether, but I loved the way Scottie had to face her true feelings and everything she’s done while she was hurting. Her conversation about it with her family was awesome—I adored how her parents and sisters all showed her they were on her side, but against her specific self-destructive actions that harmed her and others.

Unfortunately, afterward came my least favorite chapter of the book where all those revelations and the implications behind them got laid out a little too plainly, a little too many times. The author suddenly stopped showing at all and started telling, and at some point I was kind of rolling my eyes, like, I get it! Hurt people hurt people! Can we go back to conveying that point through Scottie’s actual life experiences, as well as through other characters like Irene, Tally, and Charlotte? You’ve been doing so well, book, there was no reason to switch from storytelling to preaching!

Aside from that one hiccup, though, I’ve had great fun. The banter was juicy, the drama was messy, the resolution was cheesy in the best way, and I really, really liked how Scottie’s transition from getting over Tally to falling for Irene to actually being able to be with Irene was handled. Also, big yay for caring family and awesome friends. No matter what was going on in the leads’ lives and how toxic some aspects of it got, each of them always had someone in her corner, and I just found this really, really heartwarming.