I had FOMO because of the rave reviews, but this wasn’t for me
SPOILER ALERT
I thought the MC felt much younger than 18. I was very tired of the repetitiveness, most specifically that Jaime had a girlfriend so Daunis was trying not to like him and how she kept referring to Lily as her best friend. “My best friend does this.” I’m sure the author wanted to drive this point home in order to make what happened to Lily and how it affected Daunis more impactful - I can see that - but it didn’t work for me and I was so annoyed with it. The writing style is extremely simplistic, yet overwritten. There was too much telling and not enough showing. Tell us that Lily is Daunis’s best friend once. Then illustrate it through the story. It was almost 100 pages (18% of audio) of teen angst before anything really happened. I was too irritated with all of that to care by the time the story seemed to take off, but I listened a little further, hoping maybe I could find a way to get into this. I found it so difficult to believe that Jaime would have had Lily flee the crime scene and that he would take her home, swearing her into secrecy, once she knew he was a cop. I realize there may have been a better explanation for this as the story continued, but I thought the book was poorly written and I had no ambition to go any further.
I thought the MC felt much younger than 18. I was very tired of the repetitiveness, most specifically that Jaime had a girlfriend so Daunis was trying not to like him and how she kept referring to Lily as her best friend. “My best friend does this.” I’m sure the author wanted to drive this point home in order to make what happened to Lily and how it affected Daunis more impactful - I can see that - but it didn’t work for me and I was so annoyed with it. The writing style is extremely simplistic, yet overwritten. There was too much telling and not enough showing. Tell us that Lily is Daunis’s best friend once. Then illustrate it through the story. It was almost 100 pages (18% of audio) of teen angst before anything really happened. I was too irritated with all of that to care by the time the story seemed to take off, but I listened a little further, hoping maybe I could find a way to get into this. I found it so difficult to believe that Jaime would have had Lily flee the crime scene and that he would take her home, swearing her into secrecy, once she knew he was a cop. I realize there may have been a better explanation for this as the story continued, but I thought the book was poorly written and I had no ambition to go any further.