Oh my GOODNESS — SMILE can seriously just… go. I swear, every time I pick this up I get hit with the same reheated, overdramatic nonsense like someone bottled up middle school chaos and decided to publish it as deep literature. I SWEAR. If I wanted this level of petty, performative freak-out, I’d stroll into a middle school cafeteria at lunchtime and get the exact same energy for free. Lockers, sticky pizza, rumor chains — all the authenticity it’s pretending to have, but way less annoying.

The characters? Ugh. I want to throw the book across the room. I SWEAR. They act like every small inconvenience is the apocalypse and every awkward conversation is the kind of trauma that deserves a TED TALK. Newsflash: not every sigh needs to be an origin story. Not every misstep needs three chapters of brooding and a montage. It’s like they took a highlight reel of teenage angst and amplified it until it’s unbearable—no nuance, no growth, just endless drama for drama’s sake. I’m exhausted just breathing around their emotional whiplash.

And the so-called plot twists? Please. It’s the same circle of petty betrayals and exaggerated feelings recycled like it’s clever. I swear, by chapter three I already know the emotional beats: someone WILL miscommunicate, someone WILL overreact, someone WILL misunderstand, and then we’ll have a whole season of everyone being furious for the span of three pages. It’s laziness disguised as “character development,” and I am NOT here for it. Give me growth, give me stakes that feel earned — not this constant cafeteria-level chaos masquerading as important storytelling.

Honestly, the book wants to be taken seriously but keeps doing the exact thing that refuses to mature. If you’re going to make me relive middle school melodrama, at least give me characters who learn something or situations that feel real. This one? It just spins its wheels and expects applause for being loud. I don’t applaud — I roll my eyes, close the cover, and seriously consider hurling it across the room. I SWEAR.

So yeah — SMILE, more like SMH-ILE. If you love theatrical, repetitive teen drama, knock yourself out. Me? I’ll pass. I’ll take actual emotional depth, plot that surprises for a reason, and characters who don’t treat every small thing like nuclear fallout. Until then, keep your melodrama. I’m going back to literally anywhere that isn’t this book — even the middle school hallway sounds better right now.

So the book was made by my favourite characters with Piper, Taylor and Steven. Let mean how can they not be your favourite but the book low-key made me really mad like belly you’re so self-absorbed