I mean... I think this is my fundamental problem with "new adult" as an entire genre. This is a teen Wattpad novel with smut. Not even particularly hot smut. The characters are bland, the romance is too quick, the world building is pretty poor but also very similar to Lore Olympus. Like there was a LOT of times when this felt like "what if Lore Olympus but 50 shades of gray" and you can imagine the exact quality of writing that exists here. Maybe this could have been salvaged if it had better prose but said prose were not particularly beautiful so there was really nothing saving this.

This book ruined my life and I will soon write a full review of it but now I just have to live with my broken ruined heart.

This book is fantastic and spooky and exactly what I needed. I've read a number of works by this author and every one of them is so great. I just love what great world building manages to fit in such a compact story while also giving great character development. I adore this. I will for sure read it again.

Full review to come.

I mean this is mostly just.... boring. Really it took half the book for the actual plot to kick up. Between the very predictable plot (if you've read the secret history or more or less any dark academia books you'll guess every part of this) and the way the characters talk and the fact that I didn't care about a single one of these characters I just wasn't here for it. It isn't that the characters were unlikable, I can handle unlikable characters, It's that there was almost no substance to any of them. Not a single one has a trait beyond "is a pretentious theater kid who likes to drink" and, for the lead girls "is pretty." It's just.... it's not a good book in my opinion. 

A really lovely read. I thought it was such an interesting story and the characters were so vivid. I loved how the story flowed and the ending in particular was incredible. Well worth the read and one I will probably come back to again.

I read this book because it was selected for the book club I'm in with my sisters and mom.  I would not have picked this or any other Gladwell book had it not been for that. I do not think you should pick this book up, either, and I wish I had requested we pick a different book. I didn't know exactly what to expect on this one. I assumed it was going to be a book about how to talk to strangers or how to avoid getting into dangerous situations with strangers. I didn't expect what this book actually is which is a very upsetting series of excusing violent behavior. I'm sure that the author didn't intend to make excuses for cops who kill people or for men who rape women and children and yet here the fuck we are. I'm super annoyed because the "conclusion" of this book is essentially "yeah it's dangerous to trust everyone but it's way worse NOT to trust everyone and there is uhhhhh nothing we can do about that" like how is THAT the conclusion? I'm really honestly not looking forward to the book club conversation for this book... Also please check the trigger warnings because I didn't and I am FULL OF REGRET. 

This was a very sweet book, very poetically written and a great reset from some of the other books I've read this year. I thought the plot could have been a lot tighter, though, and sometimes the characters did things that seemed not to fit based on what we knew of them so far. Overall, however, it was a charming read that I'm glad I read. Plus, that cover art!

I'm going to .... think about this one for awhile. I knew content wise there was going to be some stuff that fucked me up but uhhhh it fucked me up more than I thought and not in a fun way. Check out the trigger warnings from the author here: https://sharpegirl.tumblr.com/post/627443296317358080/content-warnings-for-the-girls-ive-been

Significantly better than the first one I thought. Tighter plot, better character growth, interesting world building. There were still parts that felt jarring incorrect for the character based on the comics I've read but still overall a much better read than the first one.