I'd actually started and abandoned this book maybe last year or the year before, and I'm not convinced I really missed out when I made that call. Two stars honestly feels generous, but I was pleasantly surprised by the epilogue — though it seemed at odds with preestablished principles and narrative arcs.

This story quite possibly contains every YA het-romance cliché ever. While I applaud the intent of bringing attention to the flawed social systems and its many cracks that kids like Mallory and Rider so easily fall through, as well as the lasting psychological effects, I can't say that I agree with some of the themes expressed. Casting Paige as the bitchy established-girlfriend in particular bothered me, especially after we find out that

Spoiler

her dad's an abusive drunk and she intentionally gets between him and her little sister

, which is disturbingly passed over in the drama of Mallory's life; if it was an attempt to humanize her, make her a more sympathetic character rather than a hostile obstacle to Mallory and Rider's relationship, it wasn't very well executed. (I prefer Jenny Han's setup, where Peter K is still there for Gen post-breakup because she matters to him, even knowing that his gf Lara Jean's not completely comfortable with the situation.)

I found Mallory to be annoyingly moralistic, by which I mean that for someone who's supposedly so uncertain of herself and is convinced she's "weird," she's certainly very opinionated about everyone else's lives, as expressed in ideas like

Spoiler

Ainsley "has to" talk about her inevitably eventually going blind, Rider "has to" change himself first (which is shortly contradicted when he tells Mallory she saved him, and she follows up by saying that she "put him back together"), Carl and Rosa just "don't get it" in all the usual teenage-angsty areas of boyfriend and future plans

. Also, can we stop romanticizing disobeying/lying to parental figures? (In most cases they really are coming from a good place, even if we don't see it that way in the moment!)

There was also an attempt at a relatable teenage-girl narrative voice, but it was stilted and off. (Maybe it's a formatting error, but "liked-liked" in particular bugs me — the emphasis should be on the first "liked," as anyone who's used the phrase knows; also, it's a very middle-school term. Also, "an alumni" is just wrong.) The prose waffles between clinically, painfully detailed play-by-play of every single miniscule happening and cringey vagueness (to paraphrase: she wasn't sure what he smelled like, but it smelled good), which was at best distracting.

I take it back, this novel was definitely (in not insignificant part) emotionally driven. The characters mostly seemed more like plot tools than people, and I guessed the killer long before the reveal, though I didn't see the final twist coming; that said, it was a fairly enjoyable read.

This book started off fairly tame, gradually got darker and more suspenseful, then got very brutal very quickly. I did enjoy the non-linear pacing; it worked really well with the events as they unfolded. Some empowering messages and important takeaways, though the ending was a little too clichéd to be wholly satisfying after a dual narrative so charged with guilt and revenge and relentless drive to find and fix the truth of the past.

(As a side note: the reason it took me a relatively long time to finish this book is not that it dragged or overwhelmed, but simply that I started college and couldn't always find time to pause and just read.)

For some reason I keep getting this one mixed up with I'll Give You The Sun, which is weird because they're not at all alike except that they're both YA lit; I adore IGYTS, so it's more than likely that some of that affection transfers over when I think about this less-memorable book.

This was cute! And a fairly light read, as evidenced by how quickly I burned through it. Written plainly, with very humanly flawed characters and no surprises, it balances plot and romance pretty well considering it's allegedly first and foremost a love story.

3.5 stars, I guess.

I think I'm starting to outgrow Dessen books; they're sweet but incredibly formulaic, tender but also melodramatic. And when you managed to get a boyfriend who's better by far than any of the boys in this book, your standards for literary romance tend to skyrocket 😉

The premise was pretty solid, as was the attempt to delve into the psychological states of all the characters. But I felt that this novel didn’t probe as deep as it seemed to be meant to, and the prose itself was a little stilted.

The main theme I got from this book was boys will be boys, which I strongly disagree with for a number of reasons. With the POV and topic jumps it was hard for me to really sympathize with specific characters so the effect was of the overall narrative — a story told through the crowd rather than individuals, a story of plot and momentum rather than emotion.

And maybe that was the point. Either way, I found this an interesting but altogether not very deep read.

Maybe 3.5 stars.

This book reads like a movie (not to be confused with a screenplay): strong imagery, visual symbolism, multiple tableaux. It’s different, not necessarily in a bad way, from most books, and does take some getting used to. The small-town interconnectedness — tangled personal histories, rumors and gossip and judgment oh my — really comes through, particularly with the switching POVs. I found the ending a little anticlimactic and sentimental, particularly the scene where

Spoiler

Jess sees the light as she drowns

, but overall it was a worthwhile read.

I adored Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You the Sun, so I was more than a little disappointed when this book seemed so ordinary in comparison. Lennie’s poems are cute (if not really to my liking) and the vivid characters are memorable and lovable, but the plot (particularly the love triangle) is incredibly cliched and some of the sentiments are excessively gushy.

That said, there are some really poignant emotional moments/breakthroughs and some really lovely quotes, and overall it balances out my complaints.