"...but if Eve continued to put the kibosh on Ashline's appetite, she might just slim down to a size four in time for the masquerade ball."

Yikes.

Okay. Full disclosure, I picked up this book (literally) during one of my nightly cleanings at the library. It had been misplaced and when I picked it up I began reading the blurb on the back. It piqued my interest, and when I flipped to the inside cover for a more detailed synopsis I knew this book would either be a trash heap or amazing and life-changing incredible.

The premise of the book is like every YA troupe imaginable shoved into one novel: boarding school, cheating boyfriend, evil sister, PTSD, magical powers, Gods & Goddesses, older boyfriend, and a group of teenagers who feel out of place but end up together.

I would feel more comfortable giving this book a pass if it didn't have so many themes/words/general morals that I so strongly disagree with, not only for myself, but for the targeted audience. I can see how this is appealing to high schoolers...but as a previous high school coach, I would NEVER teach my students that if their boyfriend cheats on you it's the GIRLS fault.....There's a line between relating to your audience and teaching your audience right from wrong. This novel more often than not lands on the wrong side of that line, and for me it came to a breaking point at the quote posted above. I wanted to give this a chance and power through this novel, but I kept being let down by the choices this author used. This could have been an edgier Percy Jackson-esque story, but this is not something I would recommend to impressionable teenagers.

The one redeeming quality that kept me going (aside from the representation and POC in this novel, YAY!!!! MORE OF THIS PLEASE), was that the new love interest (he's a PARK RANGER IN COLLEGE dating a h i g h school s o p h o m o r e) is rejected by our main character in the beginning, and she even calls him out for being creepy. Yet she easily dismisses this and dates him anyway. Okay...it's a fantasy for teenage girls to date an older guy...cool...but it's also cool to explain through your fiction WHY this is wrong? WHY they should date someone their own age. Why this isn't safe, and in many states i l l e g a l.

I just. Have a lot of issues with this. Was it well intended? I honestly don't know. If this is the kind of behavior or people the author hung out with at this age I pray they found better people to associate with as an adult. And if it is really just a fantastical realm of really awful people doing and saying and thinking awful things, well I guess getting it out in writing is a safe way to express yourself...but maybe don't market it at teenagers who don't know the difference yet...

For the record I got to page 268 before I stopped reading. I felt that was enough of a taste into the novel to still qualify to give a review. The fact that I didn't finish it and still had these many issues is slightly alarming.