
There are good things, and bad things, about this book.
The main good thing: it kept me entertained. There is nothing I enjoy more than a book that I can't put down. That in itself is enough for me to say that I liked this book.
However, it kept me entertained for all the wrong reasons. It started out well enough: a girl, at the top of the food chain, falls to the bottom when rumors fly about what happened one night with her best friend's boyfriend. Sadly, I've read about this before in at least one different location:
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen.
Then comes the loner with a bad reputation, who becomes this girl's friend (more or less.) Once again, Just Listen anyone? And all of her ex-best friends are torturing her.
Things would have been okay if it would have been left at the rumors and cattiness. That's what teenage girls do. However, it was taken one step further. This girl was pushed down flights of stairs. All of her books were thrown into a pool. She was blackmailed. She was locked in a closet. There was a hate page posted about her. And there was even some rancid meat thrown into her locker when things got really bad.
And then, the grand ending: she was ditched on the side of the road miles away from the school, right after taking a beating from one of her abusers.
This does not sound like high school to me. For one thing, wouldn't there be teachers around? Is there nobody patrolling the halls like in my high school? It seems kind of far-fetched to me that the girls could abuse her so badly and
never get caught.
It also doesn't seem that realistic that any girls from any high school would be willing to go to such lengths to make one person miserable. It happens, I know, but to quite this extent? I'm not sure.
This book held great potential. I absolutely adored Courtney Summers' first novel,
Cracked Up to Be. However, this one fell short of expectations. It was... eh, okay. I'd bet there are tons of girls who enjoyed it more than I did. But it definitely didn't strike a chord with me.