I definitely liked it way less than I expected to, especially because I was hoping for something along the lines of My Dark Vanessa.

This novel feels like McCurdy’s chance to process some of her experiences in a fictionalized format that feels safer than the reality of what a memoir should be.

Everyone infuriated me and I think that’s exactly what they were meant to do. It doesn’t mean I didn’t want to throttle them, but I kind of felt the same way I would when reading a long Reddit thread where OP continuously makes bad decisions while commenters are screaming advice and it goes unheard while OP wonders why things are kind of getting worse. It even has somewhat of the same ending and I don’t know if that’s a compliment or insult.

This got progressively worse as it went on and by the end, there was no mystery at all, not any semblance of the original plot due to several extremely overcomplicated plot lines thrown in.

Conveniently, the character forgotten halfway through is also the only POC character in the entire book, whose POCness was only brought in for an utterly irrelevant plot point that perpetuated internalized racism.

I think this had a lot of potential as a mystery but kept getting side tracked by other things. It wanted to say things but also felt unclear in what it was trying to get across, leaving me feeling like I was lost on what actually mattered and what didn’t

It’s fun to read the origin of a mystery explanation I know from watching Detective Conan. Remembering 60% of the twist means I sort of knew what the reveal would be but somehow couldn’t remember who the culprit would likely be.