I really, really wanted to like this... I just couldn't.
I tried, I really tried to get into this book. But right from the beginning I was annoyed and uncertain of the outcome. Over the course of the rest of the book, more and more faults popped up and it dragged the book down further. If you find the beginning (the first two chapters) difficult to get into, here's my advice to you - don't read the rest.
👎 What I Disliked 👎
Beginning: Okay, the beginning was really rough. It starts right in the middle of a scandal, that our MC Alice is somehow in the middle of. Usually I am all for in medias res - but they have to be done right. Here' it definitely didn't work, mainly because the characters are blank slates so it's hard to sympathize with Alice or even understand the scandal at all because we know nothing of her or Teddy, the male MC. It just falls flat right from the beginning.
Juvenile: The events of this book takes place during the characters' senior year of high school but if you didn't know that, you'd more likely think that it was their freshman year. They seem juvenile at times, the way they talk, their motivations, their arguments, everything.
Flashbacks: There are a couple of very weird flashbacks scattered throughout this book that doesn't really do it any favours. As readers, we aren't given any idea that these are flashbacks and I understand why the author did it like this - she wants to shock us later on with the sudden realisation that what happened earlier in the book was actually also earlier in the story (sort of like a Westworld kind of thing). Only, it didn't have that effect because it wasn't consistent in any way. It just felt... strange.
Alice's parents: Alice is a girl I could have liked in a different story. She is a nerdy girl who studies hard because her parents pressure her to always achieve and strive for better. It's an inhuman pressure for a girl of 17. But the thing I don't get is - if her parents are such big parts of Alice's life and her motivation for doing pretty much anything she does - why are they hardly even in the story? Alice's mom only makes a handful of appearances in small, inconsequential scenes where she hardly has any dialogue. Alice's father makes no appearances whatsoever. Their lack of presence again made it hard to sympathize with Alice and to make her seem like a well-rounded, full character who had a life outside of her friends.
Bizarre event: The blurb for this book talks of a 'bizarre' event - the one that led to the scandal involving Alice and Teddy - and I found that turn of phrase strange until I read this book. It really is totally bizarre! And so not scandal worthy! I actually laughed because it just seemed so far fetched, unrealistic and ridiculous.
ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review