I sped through this in about five hours, across two reading sessions. It’s definitely an engrossing thriller, and I was never able to guess who was behind everything. Props to Urban for that.

However, my biggest issue was that all of the characters were extremely stereotypical. We’ve got Amber, the bland protagonist who’s slightly unique because of her interest in music and composition; Priya, the forgotten best friend; Sasha, the new best friend and high school hierarchy leader; Robbie, the jock boyfriend who primarily cares about himself; Diego, the genius who everyone hates for no real reason; and Scott, the one who uses and occasionally sells drugs and therefore must be worthless, apparently. None of them have actual personalities, and all felt very two-dimensional.

Priya, Diego, and Scott deserved so much better, to be honest. They’re just good, normal people trying to make it through the disaster that is high school, and they all got the short end of the stick here. Sasha was the classic manipulative, popular girl that was awful for no real reason, and Amber got sucked into the same crowd and fell for all their lies. She even got the hot jock as her boyfriend, although Robbie was actually self-centered and mildly manipulative. (Every time I saw Robbie’s name, I thought of the Victorious character, lol oops.)

It annoyed me to see just how much this book relied on high school clique drama. Sasha and company were always bullying the “nerds” and “outcasts” just because they could, and Amber knew it was wrong but didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to jeopardize her own spot in the terrible person club. I wonder if she knows that being a bystander is just as bad as being a bully.

This book was honestly a train wreck I couldn’t look away from. The ending, while unexpected, didn’t make much sense. When I found out who was behind the whole scenario, I was mega confused. It felt random and unnecessarily dramatic, and then it was suddenly just over.

Amber orchestrated the whole thing as some sort of far-fetched revenge plot against Sasha, and invited the others in hopes of airing all the dirty laundry between them so Sasha would realize how awful she’d been. The hour ended with Priya killing Sasha before Sasha could inject Amber with whatever was in the syringe, which, spoiler alert, was harmless, though no one but Amber knew that. The other four were traumatized but alive, and Amber’s like “Oh no, I’m responsible for someone’s death!” and turned herself in. The end.

I would’ve liked another chapter or two talking about what happened to everyone.

Ultimately, I don’t think I recommend this book. It wasn’t awful and I think Urban has a lot of potential to grow as a writer, but I also am pretty sure I’ll forget about this book in a few weeks.

Representation

(Note: While not problematic in any ways I could detect, the rep seemed to be an afterthought. I’m mentioning it because it’s there, but there are definitely better books, ownvoices books, you could read if you’re looking for that rep specifically.)