omg what did I just read *sob*

the worst part is that there are parts that are actually good!? the writing is engaging and the whole idea about being whisked away to a rich estate and having to navigate the class differences, plus all the drama about the MC's dad shows promise.... but the rest... HELP 

This is not a YA book. It's 100% New Adult. This should not have Young Adult Fiction in all caps on the back, especially without an age rating. I know New Adult wasn't a thing in 2016 the way is it today HOWEVER, it was not uncommon at all for books to have some sort of age rating like 13-15 or 14+, 16+ etc. I have books from that time period with those on the inside flap. 

I was bamboozled with this and I am not happy. 

Definitely one of those plots that could have been easily solved by the characters going to therapy at any point, but not in an annoying/frustrating way. It's almost the point of the book.

I enjoyed reading the book. The first part feels like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Jenkins doesn't spend much time endearing you to the relationship, but she makes you watch it crumble. I liked this because I couldn't tell if they would get back together or not, or if that's even what I wanted for the characters. You have to go on that journey with them.

Jenkins writes amazing characters, which kept me hooked throughout the story. This book lacked some of the hallmark draws of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or Daisy Jones and the Six where a lot of the intrigue comes from the crazy lives led by the protagonists. Here, Lauren is a normal 30-year-old. Despite that, this book was still compelling, never feeling like a chore. It felt like you were let in on a snapshot of Lauren's life.

The book feels very real, I think it takes well into that fear of ending up in a marriage you hate because of an emotional decision you make before your brain's fully developed. I still feel like I'm left wondering about what will happen after the events of the novel, however, that reflects the realities of life: we don't know what will happen and all we can control is how we react to it. 

Above all, I appreciate how genuine and honest this book felt. It doesn't have that obsession-filled, proximity-to-fame pull of Jenkin's later works that hooks you into a whirlwind of drama, but you can see the beginnings of that here. She successfully pulls you into a year of Lauren's life and makes it interesting. 

Brain hurts. Topics were different from the way the course had decided them (not really this book's fault) but it made using it as a studying tool hard, especially when the practice questions weren't testing the necessary competencies. 

Some good support for the course content, but I didn't have as good of an experience with this as I did with the main textbook. 

Yay!! Actually relevant for course content. Easy to study from.

For someone who refuses to get into a boat larger than a canoe, I've been reading a lot of seafaring adventures this year.

This one absolutely charmed me! I found the ending was a bit sudden, but it works with what this book was trying to do. It's not a survival story. 

I would have preferred a book with a bit more of a reflection/retrospective. This came out a few years after the tree-sit so it as a highlight account of the experience, which was very interesting learning about how the whole operation was run.

I'm very disappointed in the book. The fact is that it's simply not good.

There isn't much in the way of plot, agency, or character development. Elsa doesn't do anything in the book except hit iconic beats from Frozen. They attempted to give Anna more agency, but her motivations don't make sense in-universe. She does things because she needs to do them for the plot, and even then, she's not driving it. The driving factor of the plot is the curse that Elsa and Anna are under, and neither of them can do anything about it until it goes away on its own.

This makes the book super easy to read, but in all, I think it's doing a disservice to middle-graders. This could be a young person's opportunity to read an amazing book that hooks them into reading for the rest of their life because they love Frozen and see Elsa and Anna on the cover. Instead, it's mediocre at best and shares nothing with the books that made me fall in love with reading as a child. I don't feel as if I have been magically transported to Arendelle. I felt like I was in my room reading a book. 

I looked into Disney Publishing when I realized how many books were in this Twisted Tales series alone and they have these authors pumping out so many books I'm surprised this one is coherent. Not that I was surprised given how many Disney books were in the bookstore's Middle-grade section in comparison to non-Disney. The volume of novels they are churning out is impressive, but the quality of them likely is not. This is the only one I've so far and while I do have others I'm interested in reading, I no longer have a lot of hope for them being good.

The worst part is this is one of the earlier books to come out in 2019 before they ramped up the publishing. There's no way the future books are any better except by random chance. 

It's been wayyy too long since I've read this series but I need to pick up the new books from this author. 

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting out of this.

I don't think I fully got the vision. Sure, these aren't the main characters in fantasy or science-fiction books, but they are the protagonists in contemporaries. Ultimately, this book isn't more than a high-school coming-of-age contemporary with a little gimmick. 

Ness is a great writer. I found the prose engaging, and the book was easy to read. The characters felt real and interesting, and the gimmick was fun. However, I don't think it's mould-breaking or anything special, and I don't think it's making a critique of the fantasy/sci-fi/dystopian genre. It doesn't even vary from the contemporary genre that much. Without its little gimmick, it wouldn't be any different than anything else I've read in this genre, if anything it would be quite plain and unoriginal.