I was searching netgalley for something to read and just happened to spot this book and thought I'd give it a chance. So glad I did. It was wonderful! Gripped me in right from the beginning. I had never heard of this author before but will certainly keep an eye out for her future books. Highly recommend!

This reads like PREP meets PRETTY LITTLE LIARS. In fact, her writing is very Sittenfeld as well.

I don't know why it was listed as women's - almost the entire story is teenage years while written in a grownup language. This was kind of the best and also the weirdest thing about this book. While I kept thinking this is going to be hard because this is raising the bar for YA books (that tend to be written in a form of chit-chat sometimes, even when addressing drugs, alcohol, teenage death, divorce, rape etc.), and this book has a SIMPLY STELLAR LANGUAGE.

Half of my copy is highlighted just with original descriptions and chains of thoughts. That I also don't believe any high schooler would ever have. That's why I said - it's also the weirdest thing.

This reminded me of Sittenfeld's "Prep," that I also kept reading and thinking it's not very likely that a college kid would use such words in her own head.

It's more like a teacher's journal of a teenager's behavior.

I couldn't care less about the plot. In fact, the whole structure keeps jumping back and forth so much, sometimes even within the same chapter that so many things literally are re-written just to keep the reader in tune with what's going on. It felt like yet another version of Mean Girls gone bad, and despite the fact that there are deaths mentioned it feels like something distant, happening in the neighbors' yard, not yours.

I'm still in love with her writing and will download all of Berla's other books.