ok i may have come into this one with a little too high of expectations
im aroace and was super hyped to finally see a book with not one but two aroace main characters!!! so like honestly i may have rated this book a little lower were it not for that

but unfortunately there was a solid chunk of this that i did not vibe with

there were (imo) entirely too many pop culture references/things that could only be understood if you were chronically online. and im someone who usually is not annoyed with pop culture references in books!! but in this it felt like almost every page was referencing some musician or some meme, and like in the kindest way possible memes read very differently in a book than online (especially since memes age so quickly vs the fact that publishing is quite the slow beast)

also, it felt like how upset sophie and jo were about the whole "you're wendy! YOURE WANDA!?" thing was ridiculous. just felt like way too drawn out of a conflict. genuinely i am the same age as these characters and i thought about "hey, how would i react if i found out my closest friend were running a parody of an account i do?" and the answer is i'd find it hilarious. cause objectively that is really funny

also i really don't like how this book went down the angle with Jo of "hates themself because they can't feel romantic love". it's the same road Loveless by Alice Oseman went down (and i could not fucking stand that book). i understand if that's a common experience for aros to go through (i never went through that, but my experience is not everyone's experience), but as there's genuinely so little aroace rep in books it just feels a little sad to have majority of aro rep be "i hate myself for i cannot feel romantic attraction".