It's hard to deny how well written this book is. Zevin writes characters that are believable, interesting, complicated, and ridiculous who mature and age. That's not an easy thing to pull off. This book has been all over the internet with great reviews, so when the library had it available, I figured I'd give it a shot. 

The book is a marvel for a lot of reasons- structure, timing, dialogue, meta creations, etc. It did this weird thing that I get sometimes with books where when I start reading it, I don't want to stop, but when I stop, I don't want to read it. 

At times this book exhausted me. It's to her credit that she wrote these characters with problems so real it made me realize why this isn't what I go for. Why read a book about well written, seemingly real fictitious problems when the world is full of real ones? I noticed this more with Sadie, one of the three friends, who put up with so much misogyny and sexism in order to get what she needed. I saw this with Sam, someone with a disability who refused to be considered disabled. It's so frustrating. It feels like a death by a thousand cuts. Also, people who can't communicate or misinterpret things when you, the reader, know the full story made me sigh so much. You want to see a different path, but sadly, you're not the one playing the game, you're the friend sitting on the couch, watching your friend make decisions in the game you wouldn't make. I can see why so many people like this book because it is so well done. 

There's one part of this book that I haven't seen people talk about b/c it's somewhat of a spoiler, but there's an act of violence that happens. An act of violence triggered by homophobia. It probably gave me the biggest sigh. In March of 2023, when over 400 anti LGBTQ bills have been introduced in legislatures across the US and where my home state is making a name for itself for trying to force my community into hiding, it wasn't something I was prepared for. In the book, it's not done poorly. It's fine. I'm sure if you're not LGBTQ it might not even be that big of a deal. But for me, at this time, it wore me out.

Overall though, the book is masterfully crafted. I get why people talked about. 

I liked it. I just didn't love it.