I do not have words for the disappointment of this book. I expected so much from Zusak. I give him credit for the ambition of the novel I cannot get past how much I failed to understand character motivations or thought processes. The 19 and 20 year olds read more like middle aged characters. There's a lot of sex-shaming and "friendzone" angst from the lead character. It's very hard for me to get past some of the very poor choices Ed makes in the novel. Then the last part of the novel seems to hit the reader over and over again with another twist.

I so wanted to like this book. It wasn't that the book itself was bad but it felt wrong to me. I didn't feel the love of it the way I did in Book Thief and it didn't inspire me the way BT did. 2.5 stars.