I received an arc of this from Bloomsbury via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Summary
Maegan is known as "the cheater" since she was caught cheating on the SAT, causing her and 100 other student's tests to be thrown out. And to add to the household tension, her sister has just come home from college pregnant.
Rob was always the big guy on campus. But after his dad was turned in for stealing money from his clients, he's become a social outcast. At home, Rob is also responsible for taking care of his comatose father who lived after attempting to take his own life.
The two are teamed up for a math project and realize they've both been looking for someone to talk to. As they grow close, they try to make amends for all the dark secrets they're hiding.

Overview
This book is told in dual perspective from the POV of Maegan and Rob. This book is packed to the brim with lots of difficult topics (taking care of a comatose parent, familial & school pressures, and loads more). So definitely make sure you're in a head space to handle a heavy book before going into this one.


Content Warnings: Embezzlement, Attempted Suicide, Cheating (school), Bullying, Teen Pregnancy, Abuse, PTSD (never directly stated)

What I Liked
1. Mr. London. He was hands down my favorite character in this book (and the only one who didn't drive me up a wall).
2. I thought the relationship between Rob and Maegan was well written and realistic. I appreciated that they supported each other when they had no one else to rely on.
3. The sisterly bond between Sam and Maegan was really well written. They bickered and didn't always see eye to eye, but they always had each other's best interest at heart. It felt like such a realistic portrayal of siblings. And I definitely wanted to slow clap when Maegan stood up to the professor.

What I Didn't Like
1. My number one grip with this book was the sheer over-the-top dramatics. Like there was never a single moment of relief throughout this. It was just terrible choice after terrible choice. And to make it even worse it wasn't just the teens being train wrecks - it was every adult too. But the end I was so exhausted and frustrated. It just felt like way too much. The reader is dragged in so many directions and into so many problems that I personally never connected or cared about any of them. Because there was always another disastrous thing happening. I needed this to focus on one big thing rather than taking on: teen pregnancy, embezzlement, child abuse, bullying, cheating, familial pressures, poverty, attempted suicide, etc. It was all just too much.
2. I HATED that her pregnant sister gets drunk at high school party and then it is never discussed again. Like everything's cool. Not okay.


This was overall just not for me. This book was heavy, but not in a way that I enjoyed. I can definitely appreciate that there were important topics discussed in this - and if these are something you're interested in reading about, this may work for you! But overall I felt like this book took on too much.

A Brigid Kemmerer book I didn't love...huh....



I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. It started off great and while I was reading the first 50 pages I though it was gonna be another 4-5 star read. Unfortunately, the rest was just...meh. Here's the thing, I both loved and hated the MCs. I loved how Rob wasn't ashamed of just sitting alone and reading (and gushed about books and binged YA series*u*) even though he was one of the "popular athletes" before. How he took care of his father even though he despised him. How he constantly tried to fix his father's mistakes and help others. He was generally a nice guy. Until he wasn't? Okay, I admit, I can understand his actions from the second half of the book, but that doesn't mean I approve them. I'm kind of sad the author went with this direction for his "character development" because it wasn't development, it was the opposite of that. He kept repeating the same mistake and not seeing it. It got really frustrating.



Then there's Maegan. The girl with the weirdest name which it just took me 5 tries to write correctly. She was...average. That's all I can say about her. She has her issues but when you compare her to Rob, her life is as perfect as it can be. This huge difference between their life situations made it hard to connect with them or their love story based on sharing their issues with each other. It just seemed like Rob needs all the help he can get and Maegan needs to stop whining about not so important things: she is apparently a social outcast but has 2 close friends that care about her and isn't bullied like Rob, she thinks her family thinks she's horrible even though they tell her otherwise all the time, and when you actually think about it, all this drama and "huge problems" are her sister's...not hers. So yeah. The whole "bonded over life problems and sad family drama" she wrote about in her other two books (Letters to the Lost ♥) just doesn't work here.



I didn't like any of the secondary characters, except maybe Megs parents. Most of them were just plot devices. Also, the ending was too neat for me. Everybody made up with whoever they were fighting, all secrets were revealed and justice has been served. I wish it ended a bit differently but whatever. I didn't actually care that much about their romance or them so yeah...It was still a decent read and it has 1. MC with glasses 2. Doctor Who reference 3. teachers who actually care about their students. I'm giving this 3.5 stars :)