I'm being a bit generous here because it's a debut novel, and I don't want to discourage the author or potential readers. I can tell Lanie Tech is talented and I'm sending her all the best for the rest of this series!
That being said, you can tell where this story originally came from…meaning that it has certain fanfic roots that became very obvious to me once I learned about it. Some aspects of the story are just constantly repeated, which I think is common in fanfiction due to the space between updates, where recaps are often necessary. But this is a full novel, and I don’t understand why I was fed the same information multiple times. It served no purpose. I felt for Knox's story, but the amount of repetition just didn’t work, and it didn’t effectively convey trauma.
Rory and Quinn didn’t even seem like best friends. Maybe that’s because neither really had a distinct personality, but it didn’t feel like they were childhood best friends at all. Almost every conversation was about school or boys—mainly the hot neighbors. I’m pretty sure they passed the Bechdel test (hopefully, though I genuinely can’t remember), but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.
Quinn and Knox weren’t enemies-to-lovers; they were the ultimate miscommunication trope’s wet dream. I genuinely couldn’t keep up with them—constantly disliking each other and acting as if they’d murdered each other's families. I kept reading, waiting for Quinn and Knox to have a genuine moment of connection, but all I got was a drunken “I’ve always liked you” confession and some questionable smut (since she’d been drinking, which wasn’t necessary). Then, out of nowhere, they’re inseparable and in love? I wanted more yearning; it was hard to believe they were anything other than horny, desperate, and petty.
Quinn, in general, was hard to root for. She seemed very judgmental and quick to make assumptions, and that was…well, that was it. I genuinely couldn’t tell you anything else about her personality besides: a) she’s bad at art and insecure about her talent, which she constantly mentions in the strangest ways, b) she hates Knox and Ace, and c) she’s so horny that I genuinely thought she was going to hook up with everyone she talked to.
Speaking of which…the amount of cursing in this book is criminal. I love some swearing, but…did they just discover curse words? It was so overused that it became juvenile. I felt like I was reading about high schoolers (and honestly, based on how they acted, I wasn’t sure if they weren’t). It felt unnecessary and made it a tough read.
The characters lacked substance overall. There weren’t distinct personalities, and the side characters just seemed to float around. I did DNF, so maybe they get more development later on, but from what I read, it was boring. I didn’t care about any of them. Why did her parents show up for, like, two days? And what was with all these random side plots that had no real purpose and just vanished?
Slate was the only character I genuinely liked, but even he got old fast. He became a caricature of the funny, flirty guy. Also…how many times do we need to mention how large he is? I started highlighting it. A behemoth of a man? So large he blocks sunlight in a café? It got repetitive fast, and it also felt a bit off, considering he’s the only canonically (I think?) POC in the main friend group.
I wanted to love this book, especially to support a new author, but it wasn’t for me. That’s not to say it won’t be for others—I know plenty of people enjoyed it! I just wish it had more depth. It was lacking in too many areas for me, and the frequent spelling and grammatical errors throughout only added to the impact on my reading experience.