The premise hints at tropes - ex-jock joins the nerds, including his childhood best friend; weird mysterious new girl, etc. - but it was very well written.

The book in a nutshell: soft porn with a side serving of ambiguous scenes and some semblance of plot. That said, the underlying mystery wasn't half bad.

Definitely didn't expect to like this book as much as I did, so that was a pleasant surprise! It was really obvious that Avery and Hutch were going to be endgame, but their relationship/perception thereof changed gradually enough that it felt natural when it finally happened — in other words, one of the best, healthiest teenage romances I've ever had the joy of witnessing.

While on the surface I'm nothing like Avery — perpetually single through high school, known more for being smart than popular/pretty, definitely not athletic or even outgoing — I found it really easy to relate to her as a teenage girl who cares about finding a meaningful relationship but also is quite accomplished in her own right. (To that end, I really appreciated the explicit, "No, my (then unrealized) feelings for Hutch are not the reason my past relationships failed." Real life is complex, and this story reflects that.)

The self-awareness might have been a bit much in another format, but since this is her oral history (which in and of itself could be a paragraph, but I'll just say it was quite refreshing as a narrative medium) it's fitting. The ending was definitely cheesy, but again for an end-of-year personal project it's more than appropriate.

What I would've liked is some more diversity in the cast. Including different cliques — Bizzy and Tamsin, the "Wizarding Guild" geeks, jocks, etc — was a good start, as was at least having two significant secondary characters (Coco and her cousin Daniel) being Asian. But it's not quite as much as it could be, especially considering how easy it would've been to add a bisexual or even gay character to the extensive list of characters.

I totally adored these books as a kid; they do tend to kind of follow a formula (setting + endangered creatures + teenage vigilantes) but each adventure is special in its own right, this one included. Really vivid characters, and the plot was well-balanced between being satisfying and shocking.

It always feels blasphemous to say I enjoyed a movie more than the book, but that was the case here. It's a really interesting narrative with lots of vibrant characters, though it's been a while so I can't quite remember what it was that I didn't really like about this book.

(Usually I love bonus content, but a ton of the stuff included here conveys exactly the same ideas as the main text — sometimes verbatim, or very close to it.)

Because we'd already covered the most exciting examples/anecdotes in my Econ class, I didn't find this book very compelling. Sure, it was an interesting read, but the novelty of the topics being covered wears off really quickly.

The beginning was quite promising — I liked both POV characters, and the plot was intriguing — but the romantic (sub)plot started taking more and more (ie, too much) of the characters' focus from the job, which didn't make me really believe in how high the stakes purportedly were.

Not quite a solid 4 stars, but definitely more than 3 stars.

Very slice of life, extraordinary-in-the-ordinary kind of thing. The idea of family, both biological and chosen, lies at the heart of this story, and I really appreciated that both are acknowledged as influential. Narrative style really captures what it feels like to be a teenager trying to figure out your identity and what you want to with your life and what said life means anyway.