in short:
I'm incredibly disgusted with the sapphic "representation" in this book.
not only that, but this might be the dumbest but very certainly the most unnecessary sapphic trope I've ever read in any book. 
- having the wlw best friend fall for the fmc for no reason whatsoever other than to create tension and conflict for the main character -
which is a shame because I was really enjoying the romance and fake dating build up until then. 
if I'd known, I wouldn't have touched this damn book with a ten foot pole, in fact I wholeheartedly do not recommend this book to anyone.
 

now let me just rant because I'm TIRED:

to have the reason for the conflict between the fmc and her best friend(wren), that leads the fmc to turn to the mmc, be the fact that her best friend is and has been in love with her and is acting the way she is bc she is jealous of the mmc is WILD.
there is no indicator, let alone mention, of wren being queer until the very moment they confront each other.. almost like it's *meant* to be this huge reveal/surprise moment..
what's worse is the fact that this doesn't get talked about like at all?! 
if this had even a page worth of affect on the characters and their relationship other than the big surprise/reveal moment, I wouldn't be so mad and disappointed but to make wren queer only for that one reason and for the author to be unable to create tension and conflict any other way is just lazy and bad writing. 
in fact the whole thing just gets glossed over by saying "oh she's over the fmc now and things go back to the way they were". 

we don't get any insights into how wren might be feeling about this, the struggles of being queer and in love with your straight best friend or how much of a strain it might've been to their friendship to be forced to get over her best friend in order to keep their friendship in tact. 

it's so sad to me that sapphic women's queer identities get reduced to and used like this, only for the other parts of their identity to get neglected.. and for a man no less?! 
it was clear the author tried to make the fmc and her best friend's relationship special and meaningful which would've been great if they hadn't completely fucked it up and glossed over what happend. 
this entire "plot point" is just gross and I'm appalled that it got approved through an entire trad publishing house.

I'm so disappointed because again it was such a fun silly book to read until the 75% mark where it all went downhill. 
the ending was also rather disappointing so to say I expected a stronger third act is putting it mildly. 

I was originally planning on picking up the second book in this installment but will definitely not do that after finishing this book.