I really enjoyed this! I think many may be turned off by the very realistic tone of this novel, but I found it refreshing, heart breaking, and liberating.

Molly Barlow ditched town after her mother turned her biggest secret into a best selling novel. The novel tore apart Molly's relationship with basically everyone in Star Lake, especially the three siblings Julia, Gabe, and Molly's once boyfriend, Patrick. After a year at boarding school Molly has to spend 99 days back in Star Lake, counting the minutes to college and a new start. Forced back into a life where everyone blames her for what happened, can Molly find forgiveness, move on, or even start something new with Gabe? Or start something back up with Patrick?

Spoilers ahead - so please stop reading now if you don't want to know!

That is basically the premise, but this novel takes on a lot more. Molly's big secret is that she hooked up with her long time boyfriend Patrick's brother Gabe. She confessed only to her mother, who then turned it into a novel that everyone read. The thing I loved about 99 Days is Cotugno's confrontation of the huge double standard of slut shaming on girls. Everyone is mad at MOLLY, not Gabe. Only Molly gets chased out of town, only Molly gets her car keyed, her house egged. And shoot, Molly did do wrong, but she isn't the only one to blame here.

Molly is also not a very likeable character all of the time. She makes big, huge mistakes and gets right smack dab back into a triangle with the two brothers, but this is what I loved about this book. This felt real. Life isn't all soul mates and butterflies. High school relationships get ugly, and this book showed that to its max. Molly is really torn between two people, and yes, she is being selfish and full of hormones, but again that is how it goes sometimes.

The ending of this book was just perfect. No fairy tale, not happily ever after. Just a girl finally being done playing in a zero sum game with two boys who didn't have her best interest at heart. Bravo.