I had mixed feelings about this book, but in a way I didn't expect. For starters, this book is very nonlinear. It flips back and forth between a bunch of different timelines and feels very jumbled for that, which I expected to have a huge problem with (nonlinear storytelling is not my cup of tea). But honestly, that didn't bother me at all. It didn't feel like any of the different timelines had linear stories to tell of their own, so the end result was an amalgamation of all the different little pieces of Scarlett's life. It came together really well for me.

But I didn't love a whole lot beyond that. The story kept me interested the whole time and I liked the concept, but I didn't love the characters. I didn't feel attached to them and their lives. I didn't feel emotional when they were experiencing heartbreak and grief and difficult choices. I want to be involved enough in the characters' lives that I'm crying with them, but this book didn't have that for me.

I found the main character, Scarlett, incredibly irritating. Which like fine, that was the point that she was a selfish teenager who made stupid decisions at times, but there were points where it wasn't interesting to read because of that. She treated her college roommate like a doormat and occasionally it would be called out. The roommate would say something like hey it's really rude that I spend all my time and effort caring about you and you ask me nothing about myself. And Scarlett would apologize, but then it would be immediately dropped and go back to Scarlett treating her badly. I want to see the growth of characters in situations like this, and it never felt to me like Scarlett experienced much growth.

It also felt like I didn't get to know many of the side characters well. Scarlett had a couple of boyfriends, a couple of close friends, a mother who was very present, but I didn't feel like we truly knew any of those people. Maybe it was intentionally because Scarlett was supposed to be a self absorbed character, but it made the story feel a little lacking to me.

One thing I did really like was how it dealt with the pressures of being high achieving teenagers. Scarlett and her high school friends lived in a very small town and were fairly well known for being smart and talented and motivated. They were all going off to college, good colleges, in a place where that wasn't the norm. And that led to some negativity as they dealt with the pressures of that and how it followed them into college. It was an interesting discussion.

Overall, I think this book was fine. The characters were a little lacking, but I was compelled through the end and I think if you like nonlinear, issue driven contemporaries, it might be worth checking out. It didn't blow my mind, but I didn't think it was a waste of time either.