There are not enough ways for me to praise this book, I know this because if I added up every single good thing I have to say about it would still not do this book justice.

I was extremely hesitant to read this book, I was worried that with all of the hype surrounding it that my expectations might be set just a little to high and I’d leave feeling disappointed. I was worried that maybe it wasn’t actually THAT good and people were just over praising it because it is about such a difficult topic. I was afraid of reading it, and thinking yes this was important but feeling like the only person who didn’t think it was worthy of all the hype just for being about an important topic. I am so relieved that this was not the case.

What we have here is a book about such an incredibly important topic and it handles it all head on. There is no dancing around the issues, they are so SO real even in these pages. The characters feel so real. The writing was phenomenal. There were times when I put this book down and could still see everything and everyone from this book so clearly, like I was watching a movie, or a show or the actual news. This book made me cry, it made me anxious, it had me holding my breath and it had me feeling numb. But what I find the most interesting is that this book also had me laughing, smiling, and holding on to hope even in the parts where I felt like there was no positive outcome possible.

The author writes about an important and dark topic in a way that provides understanding, sympathy and hope to the readers. Understanding of what it is like to be in the characters shoes, even with no personal connection to the characters their struggles felt so real to me and pulled on all of my emotions. I could genuinely feel their compassion, fear, love, anger, respect and dislike for one another. Sympathy for the characters who felt stuck, who felt like they had nothing left to give, or for those who were afraid to give any more. And hope because even when everything goes wrong, or nothing makes sense to quote the MC, these characters still keep trying to simply have people understand how they feel. They keep trying to make things better. They keep pushing forward. And honestly that is just the icing on the cake there is so much more to this story and it made me feel so much more than all of these things.

I loved everything about this book. From the way it handled difficult topics, to the characters and their relationships with one another. I loved the family dynamic with Starr's fam. I loved her relationships with her friends, even those who weren't so good to her at times. I loved being in Starr's head and experiencing her guilt, her fear and her anger with her. Everything just felt so raw and realistic.

The only thing I have left to say is that this is a book everyone should read.