Thank you to NetGalley and Flux for the ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
I am not sure where to start with this review other than this book gave me the feels. It has been a while since a book caused me to put it down and physically walk away from it while verbally responding to it because of what happened – in this case it was me walking away repeating “no” over and over again while running into a different room. I am very prone to suffering from secondhand embarrassment, especially if I am invested in what I am involved in (book/movie/tv show), and this book had me suffering from that twice! The second time I just crossed my arms, dealt with the goosebumps, and tried to not start crying. All of this to be said, I finished this book in about 5 hours, desperate to know that Kole made it out of everything ok and got her happy ending. Let’s just say I teared up at the ending in the best way.
I have read other books like this before, but there was something about this one that has put it over the top compared to the others. I don’t think I can pinpoint what it was that Kingman tapped into with this book that made it that much more enjoyable than the others I read, but I think the honesty that was written into this book really brought it to a different level. Kole is a very relatable character to anyone who had a “weird” hobby in high school, was just trying to get by and didn’t feel like they fit in. The characters all felt well-rounded and I had feelings/opinions about all of the characters, even ones that appeared only for a page.
I don’t want to say too much about the actual plot because this isn’t a completely unpredictable book, but I don’t find that to be a major flaw. Sometimes there is comfort in the predictability, especially when there are still elements of the unknown. Even reading an uncorrected proof of this book didn’t limit my enjoyment of this story, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is drawn in by the cover or the plot description.