This book is sickeningly cute and sweet, and yes, I loved it

Initially definitely thought that this was about a car mechanic and one of his clients falling in love, so I thought I was going to end up giving it only 1-2 stars, but here we are!! And it was so good!! I didn't think I would want a brain break after reading Argylle (gags), but I cannot say enough good things.

I loved that the main character was someone who felt lost at 18, as someone who also felt lost at 18 and still feels lost at 25. She was lucky to have such a good mentor in Ms. Voss, and she was able to see what a good mentor can do. I liked Teo, too, don't get me wrong, but the most compelling part of his story to me was how his mom acted more like a sister to him than a mother. Type A boyfriend and Type B girlfriend. We love to see it.

Overall, felt very realistic (cannot attest as someone who ran away from STEM), but I do wish, on a general note, that more academic lovers focused on people in the humanities rather than just STEM.

(For what it's worth, I preferred this to Deep End)

The version of me that gave up reading this in June 2024 was correct

My thoughts on this book are…complicated, to say the least. Do I have issues with the overall storytelling? Yes. Do I think that the ending switched genres so abruptly that I felt like I was reading an entirely different story than the one I'd been reading for the first 75% of the book? Also yes. Did I hate this book? No, but I wanted to.

Cady, the main character, suffers the fate of being a poorly-written main character. Her only thoughts and goals center around understanding her brother who committed suicide (literally mentioned in the first chapter, mind you, so this does not count as spoilers) and not her own goals or desires or dreams. Aside from thinking every guy she sees is attractive, she doesn't really have any agency. She also doesn't go to class, which like, if she was skipping because she didn't care, that's one thing that I understand, but she's a freshman at Harvard, I don't think you can care more than that. The main villain was cartoonishly evil and had so little character development that it didn't have any real effect. One of the guy characters was obviously not a good guy, and it was really easy to tell, I almost wish the twist had been that he was a sympathetic character. I literally predicted that part from the jump. And so many of the secondary characters were just plot devices, it wasn't even amusing. Also, one of her professors is also cartoonishly evil for being so pissed that she showed up late on the first day of class. I've had to leave class early, which is arguably more offensive, and profs literally only cared to check in on me. Maybe that's a side effect of a good department, but I feel like most profs don't care that much about tardiness on the first day unless they have an inferiority complex.

Now, you may be wondering: why are you rating this book 3 stars? To which I would say, um, actually, I'm rating it 3.25 stars (the .25 adds a lot), and it's 90% because of the audiobook. That narrator is probably the best single person narrator I've ever heard, and I'm so genuinely impressed, I'm going to make a note of her for work. When I say that the audiobook carried, I mean that the audiobook CARRIED. Literally moved the book up a full star. It otherwise would've taken me much longer to finish it. Before the audiobook loan came in, I was only able to read 30 pages of this, but once I got my hands on it, I finished it so fast. This audiobook was so good, I'm thinking of purchasing it as a trophy.

Basically, my review comes out to this: it's not bad, it's not good, I won't tell you to run away from it, and I won't recommend it. Exceptionally average at best. Needs more academia. Good October read. Probably 50 pages too long tbh

I don't know if there's a book out there that depicts what war is like better than this one