You’re probably looking for a plot synopsis because the blurb on this book does not give what it is supposed to give. Here you go: 

Cecelia Horner is an 18 (almost 19) year old woman who has been forced to move in with her very wealthy father who owns a factory in Triple Falls North Carolina for a year before she can claim her inheritance.

She meets Sean Roberts her first day at work at her father’s factory. Then she meets Dominic King and things get interesting. Sean and Dominic are hiding a lot of things from everyone except for their very close group of friends who all have the same tattoo of a Raven. There are also lots of classic cars, hiking and parties.

This is a coming of age/sexual awakening story set in a small town with an anti-establishment twist. 

The main characters are all kind of terrible and a little stupid. There is a lot of explicit sex and it’s well done, but the relationships are super toxic, there is a lot of lying and some scenes could be triggering if you have issues with emotional abuse or gaslighting.

There is not an HEA or an HFN so it’s technically not a romance. But that’s what this book is about. Hope this is helpful! 

Books are magic in that they can really get you behind someone else’s eyes, and Qian Julie Wang did something so special with this book, not only sharing her experiences but sharing them through her own eyes as a child.

Every story in this book feels so real and immediate. I felt hungry, cold, confused, happy, tired, sad, lonely, elated, scared, angry and all of the other emotions right along with her as she related every detail. I remembered being 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, loving visits to the library, hating trying to fit in at school and dealing with learning how my (very small, very privileged) life worked. 

Reading this story, which is simultaneously incredibly relatable and incredibly different from my own, hit me like a ton of bricks. When I closed the book I felt hopeful but also so frustrated by Qian’s experiences. When I feel like that, it helps me to think about what actions I can take to help ensure that no more little girls have to experience hunger, discrimination and hatred at the level that Qian did, so I made a little list for myself:

Premise was a little too out there and the formatting with larger chunks of text and no “ for dialog was very hard to slog through. Just not for me.

I just really don’t believe that the government would throw sick people in an abandoned mental hospital and not even attempt to care for them. Hazmat suits exist.