When is this book set?

I genuinly can't figure it out. There's Instagram references, so it can't be that old, but the text speak like "2moro" and "U", the Sonic the Hedgehog references, drinking in the shed in the woods, the way the teen girls act, the recession etc. all seem very early 2000s coded to me? And then there's the word "twink", which I'm pretty sure is quite new to slang??? But then the school still has nuns and they ban a girl from wearing a rainbow badge, which surely places it at least 5 year ago, and there's been no mentions of Covid? Yet the younger kid has his own phone so it has to be newish...🤦‍♀️

What it says on the tin: What is the worst book you have ever read and finished? What about the worst book you ever read and DNFed?

(Remember this is all in fun, to meet people with similar tastes, and because I'm curious, not to shame anyone for liking or disliking books you liked or disliked!!)

Listen. I know we need queer joy. I hate when authors kill all their gays and not their darlings.

BUT, I am a sucker for doomed romance. In fact, I hate feeling happy! The more tragic the ending, the more sated I feel.

Give me your contenders in the comments for the sapphic equivalent of Song of Achilles PLEASE. i want to never feel joy again.

Okay people, I have to ask this question. Do you know how to pick locks or do you know someone who actually knows how to pick locks? I swear there's always some random character in every book I read who knows how to and I've never met someone who can do it. It's kinda bothering me so please share your personal knowledge of lock picking pleaaase

Edit: I have read all you answers and I love them, thank you!! Maybe I'll get into it and try to learn as it doesn't seem difficult 👀

”I was a thing in a swimming pool being observed by a monstrous little girl. I was a mouse in an empty lot being tracked by a fox. I was the prey the starfish had reached up and pulled down into the tidal pool.”

possibly my favourite description ever of the idea that we are not separate from nature, we are nature, as much as we try to separate ourselves through the illusion of “objectivity”.