Pages: 257
Publication Date: February 1st, 2020
Genre: Contemporary, YA
This is about a teenage girl named Maya. She's the popular girl, dating the golden boy but on Monday she shows up with a black eye. Maya tells the principal and the school starts dividing themselves into sides. Some don't believe Mike did it and the other side wants him expelled. Her best friend Junie wants to support her but she's dealing with her own issues.
I think this book was actually really well done. The plot wasn't great, but I enjoyed the characters working their way through their issues. The plot wasn't a focus of the story, it's really about the different abuse and issues woman face and how they deal with it individually. This can be with drugs, cutting, bulimia, etc. I think they were portrayed in a good way that was rather unflinching with showing the issues. I felt like reaction to Maya dealing with abuse was pretty good, I haven't been in her shoes but I thought it felt reasonable. Maya dealt with it for a couple months before coming forward and she didn't really know where to go made sense. Plus she's so young, as is Junie. I liked Junie dealing with her issues as well, that rang true to me of someone dealing with an anxiety disorder. I see some people didn't like the different titles because they didn't know who was talking at what time. I disagree with this, because I think The anxious girl, the girlfriend, etc. went with the title of what kind of girl. The voices were far enough apart for me to tell within a sentence or two who was speaking.
3.5/5
I'd recommend this to fans of hard hitting contemporary like Paperweight, Moxie, etc. It fits right in with those.
**Thanks Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the e-ARC**