I want to thank Netgalley for providing me an Arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really loved this book.
When I first read the synopsis I thought I was going to be a typical YA books where the girl and boy next door fall in love but it was so much more than that.
I loved our main character and found that I related to her a lot.
The play was amazing and the twist at the end absolutely blew me away.
This book was honestly amazingly well written and I can’t recommend it enough.
I gave it 4 stars.

So I thought this was going to be a cutesy sort of book, and I think maybe it would be better categorized as NA because it felt like it except for the character’s ages. I think my main problem was I didn’t understand why Mallory liked Troy for 5 years. Because he was hot??? I think there needed to be a little more depth there as to why, especially since he was a douche to her for a bit! Eventually, they do have some great chemistry together with fantastic swoony moments! Andddddd the last 30% was really addicting!

I was looking for a mindless fun YA with loads of cheese and a little steam. I got so much more.
Over 70 percent of the book is filled with cliches. Bad boy and an underground boxing ring, check. Tattoos and Harley Davidson, check. Ms.Goody two shoes virgin with overprotective parents, check. Annoying sibling who has no purpose in the story, check. Half a decade long crush which seems unrequited only to the girl, but so obvious even to strangers, check. And yeah, there's also a gay bestfriend.
So basically, Mallory has been spying and crushing on her neighbour for over 5 years while being homeschooled by her anal retentive parents after a kidnap scare ages ago. Determined to live a normal teenage year before going to college, she pushes her parents to get her to attend a public school and there starts the story. She attends parties, underground fights, learns to sneak out of house after curfews, gains confidence, learns to get over her panic attacks after some hanky panky with the dream guy and gets a boyfriend. And the boyfriend calls her by someone else's name in a drunken stupor and carries on a mushy colloquy. Shit hits the roof and what follows is something straight out of a 80s television show. Family dramas, drug lord daddies, incomprehensible affairs, step sisters, villains, witness protections and bodyguards.
This unusual blend of noir in a YA romance was quite bold an attempt, but not as entertaining as I'd have liked. 3.5 stars.

I’m so excited I got to read this book! I’m a sucker for a classic YA - girl has a crush on boy, meets boy and they fall in love, but something is in their way. BUT! This book had something extra thrown in - a twist that I did not guess AT ALL. Seriously, y’all. I did NOT see that one coming and it was so crazy and so perfect.

I will say that there were some sections with sex that I was not really expecting. It didn’t bother me, but I also wasn’t expecting as much detail as there was.