This book suffers from a very surface level understanding of toxic masculinity, hypersexualization, misogyny and how these things intertwine. I just could not gel with this book at all. Maybe it's because I haven't read the first book so I didn't feel any warm feelings for either of the characters at the start of the book.

this is a little incoherent rant for you, but I need to put it somewhere so here it goes: 

I just could NOT stop thinking about how Fox's constant hookups, but not in the way the author intended I'm pretty sure. I don't have sympathy for him because the front half of this book is entirely without self reflection. Not to mention the fact that toxic masculinity is touched on so poorly here. The way misogyny plays into this is also nonexistent, so the 'social commentary'  feels untethered by reality and pretty paint by numbers. It lacks nuance. Fox fails to reflect on the ways he was rewarded from this lifestyle and encouraged lifestyle, and instead focuses on his 'woe is me' act. The author couldn't really expect to mention how the hero would come back from Seattle and talk about his conquests and how he got his reputation in the first place without me wanting to see him really reckoning with that. What could have been a nuanced take on Fox's hypersexualization as a teen ended up so botched. Just ZERO nuance. I'm not saying the people around him believing this stuff about him is not detrimental, I'm just saying that they are not the only piece in this puzzle.