I really enjoyed this book!! This is a fun read for lovers of A Good Girl's Guide To Murder, One Of Us Is Lying, and Pretty Little Liars.

Ellie has always dreamed of being a detective. When a list starts going around of guys in her school who have mistreated girls, she is curious about who made it. But when the boys begin to show up dead... she is now even more invested in finding out the truth.

What I loved more than anything in this book were the characters and their complexity. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and they are written so beautifully. For example, Ellie's desire to be a detective gets in the way of her being a good and attentive friend. There are so many satisfying moments of character growth!

The other piece that was super well done was how the author handled really challenging topics. There are themes of sexual assault, issues with policing, and addiction. The author did an excellent job showing how complicated these concepts are throughout the story by the way the characters wrestled with these issues.

I was proud of myself for guessing the killer before Ellie did as we were getting closer to the end... That never happens

This was a helpful book for learning about obsessive personality traits. It gives a lot of insight about patterns and tendencies, and it had some helpful strategies for intervention. I wished there was more information about best practices for treatment and strategies to make change!

The premise of this book drew me in right away, although it was a bit slow paced and took me a while to finish. Still, I enjoyed this book overall and found it very easy to read. The story was gripping and almost every chapter opened up new questions and possibilities. I kept wanting to turn the pages to learn more. The mystery had a lot of layers which kept things interesting! The relationships were complex and nuanced, which made them feel very realistic.

Sometimes it got a little hard to follow the multiple POVs and triple timelines. Another downside was that I didn't feel particularly drawn to either of the female MCs, yet I was very empathetic with both male MCs, Gabe and Max. Which is interesting since I'm usually the other way around - but I felt that the author did a great job of touching on difficult topics related to mental health and trauma for both of these characters.

The ending wasn't quite as exciting as I expected it to be, but I thought that the author did a good job tying together all the loose ends.

3.5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC copy!

3.5 stars! I liked the interesting premise of this book. I expected it to be realistic fiction, so the magical realism surprised me in a good way. I thought the concept of the doors to different parts of the world was fascinating. I loved the social commentary of how that affected senses of identity, community, and citizenship.

This was a really quick read, it only took me 2 days! Sometimes quick reads like that have a really big impact on me because I can't put them down, but this one didn't really hit me emotionally as much as I hoped it would given the storyline and characters, maybe because it felt like it breezed through so many plot points, so quickly. The writing style was challenging for me sometimes with some long, long sentences.

But overall, a worthwhile read as it gave me a glimpse into a culture that I don't read about very often.

Cute and quick read ☺️ the writing style feels pretty young for a YA novel, it feels like watching an 80s movie lol. But I might still read the next one to see what happens!