enobong's Reviews (492)

Stephen King describes this book as "A hard story to read and an even harder one to put down."

Believe all the hype. This is honestly one of the best debuts I've ever read. The psychological of this book is unlike any I've come across before. The reader is fully immersed in Vanessa mind and is privy to the manipulation and warped justification her abuser makes. I've been in too many conversations trying to understand sexual abuse from the abuser's point of view and the psychology of the abuser, trying to work out if it's an illness that should be treated or a crime that should be punished. What I love about this book is that it's all about Vanessa and the victims of abuse. It's all about her mental and physical health and the things she had been led to believe about herself. It tackles the mess of social media in sexual abuse cases and the responsibility that continues to be heaped on the victim, whether about the crime of bringing the accused to justice.

There's a point in the book where Vanessa says she HAD to believe it was a love story. Urgh that got me.

This book made me feel icky and it broke my heart but it's a book I encourage everyone to read and hope will be on high school and university reading lists one day.

What is great about this story is that there are no villains. Amy Spalding expertly taps into the complexities of teenage friendships and provides the reader with two protagonists who are both equally right and equally wrong. I love that more than anything it is a story about friendship and the point of contention isn't a boy or a love triangle issues related to the two girls in the friendship and how they relate to each other. As much as I liked the intertwining timelines, at times it was difficult to keep the order of events in minds, which might have been part of not rooting for one character over another.

One thing I do struggle with, though, is storylines in which everything, or most things, could have been solved with the characters just talking to each other. But maybe that's part of the genius of the book, the frustration in the characters ability to just have a conversation and clear up all the misunderstandings.

It's a promising debut and I happily anticipate more from Amy Spalding.

Really it's a 4.5 but only because I rarely give 5 stars. This was such a brilliant debut and everything I wish for in YA novels. It was a brilliant mystery/crime but with relevant themes and topics for teenagers and written with clever and engaging style that didn't dumb anything down for the audience. We need more YA novels like this.

Oh what the heck, I'm giving it 5 stars.