Racism, Colorism, Cyber Bullying, Bullying, Privilege
Black rep, neurodivergent rep
Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley, HarperTeen, and Joya Goffney for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.
I received the audiobook as an ARC a while ago and I only now got a chance to listen to it, so here it goes.
First of all, Jordan Cobb is a great narrator. I knew when I heard her in this one that I remember listening to her somewhere else and I’m glad to see that she’s actually the narrator in a few other books that I’ve been wanting to read, so I’m glad that I’ll be able to listen to her in the future. Her voice is very smooth and easy to follow whether it’s at 1x speed or faster. I usually listen to my books somewhere between 1.5x – 1.75x and I was able to follow her at either of those. To me, that’s important because if I can’t understand what’s being said as it gets to a speed that I usually listen to, it makes it more difficult for me to follow, oddly enough.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I saw the title, but it definitely wasn’t what I thought it would be. I like to go into books without reading much of the synopsis or other reviews so I just knew that it was a YA romance. I could see why it was said to be a romance, but I personally wouldn’t have said it was. For me, this was way more of a coming of age novel where the main character is having to learn about herself and unlearn certain things about herself too. It was more of a journey of self-discovery, and she ended up falling in love with a guy on the way. Nothing is wrong with that, but I personally wouldn’t have considered it a romance since it wasn’t the main point of the story.
Everything that was talked about in this book though was done well. Quinn is a black teenage girl and while she may not “act black” whatever that means, she is very much a black girl. But on the other hand, she also does have internal negative conceptions about black men. There was a scene where she and Carter were in a restaurant trying to get food after a road trip and she was really hesitant to get out of the car with him because there were a lot of black people around. She had to think about WHY she was afraid of other black people when she was also very adamant that people shouldn’t be racist towards black people. You can be both, and unfortunately it happens in real life. There was also a part in the book where she said that while her father is proud to be the first black surgeon (I want to say it’s surgeon but I could be wrong) or important doctor person at their hospital, it doesn’t mean that he’s proud to be a black man. And honestly I felt that so much that it kind of hurt. Can someone be proud to be the first black someone, but at the same time not be proud to be black? Yes.
I’m glad that there was punishment for the cyber bullying that occurred, but I hate that it took Quinn’s mom being a literal lawyer coming into the school to make it known. Livvy was dealing with harassment for months by the time Quinn started dealing with hers and while I’m glad that the two girls finally told Quinn’s mom so that she could get involved, I was upset that nobody did anything about it earlier. I get that this is a reflection of real life too, and honestly I don’t even know what would happen if this were to happen in real life, like what would the school administration do if they didn’t have that recording as proof of who was behind it and how they were vindictive and manipulating Quinn.
This was an amazing debut novel and I really appreciated the conversations of internalised racism that Quinn and her father had, and how Quinn had to confront and deal with it. I mean hell, Carter didn’t feel safe around Quinn’s dad when they first meet! That feeling is so serious and I’m so glad that Quinn’s mom called her dad out on that nonsense.
I also appreciated getting a chance to see the complicated relationship of Quinn and Hattie, and why Quinn had been avoidant of her since the accident. I mean, I understood why from the beginning, and while I also understood her dad’s side of why he wanted to force her, I think it was important to see both sides and for them to have that conversation of why it was such a hard thing to do.
Thoughts are so scattered right now. Basically, loved it. Highly recommend. Can’t wait to read the rest of her work. Jordan Cobb is doing an amazing job as a narrator and I look forward to listening to more books with her on them.
Sometimes Leelynn Reads 