Reviews with content warning for Drug use - As de picas

This book was amazing, I devoured it in two days and could hardly put it down. It was such a wild ride, and really eye opening. I loved the growing friendship between Chiamaka and Devon even if they came from different backgrounds, and the ending swept me off my feet. The queer representation was fantastic as well. I will absolutely recommend this book till the day I die.

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sonovahades's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This was great. so intense, but in a great way, tho not sure that sounds right. at first, i didn't like chiamaka. she knew what she wanted, sure, but she still acted very naive and very mean. but she got there in the end, so i liked her also. devon was my favourite since the beginning. he was a little pessimistic, but at least more realistic than Chiamaka xd also i love his mom so much... honestly, i figured this book will have a strong theme of racism (which is why i picked it up) i did not expect this. this was so much more.

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jayanna's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I don’t even know where to begin… I loved this book and am totally looking forward to reading more from this author.

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matmatmatty's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Would recommend this one for sure. It's very Gossip Girl-esque - secrets at a private school, lots of rich kids doing bad things, but with an anti-racism message underneath.

I think at times the villain was a bit cartoonish but for this genre, it makes sense.

The point is that so many people and so many people with power are in on it, with this level of "who can you trust" going on. It makes sense that the teachers did nothing (even though, I know for a fact if a school found out that their Head Prefect was accused of stealing and murder and had inappropriate pictures shared everywhere, they would SHUT THAT DOWN - my source : I went to a posh private school)

Questions I still have that weren't completely answered:

Who stopped Devon's suicide attempt? Like I don't think they actually said
What happened with the original headmaster? Like was he in on it, or was he against it so they got rid of him?
Chi should have just gone to the police straight after the accident. Like I get that it would have been implicating her friend and everything but I feel like the smart thing is to tell the police and if it was real, get leniency for age. Kids, if this happens to you, tell the police straight away because hiding a crime is way worse than the actual crime.
It was implied that Chi was assaulted but then it feels like it was kind of dropped? Like what happened with that?
Not a question but I think it would have been good if the revelation of previous victims had been teased a bit more. Like when Terrell first mentioned that they the only black kids, he could start looking into if they're the first and maybe find some names but they lose the trail and then they can find the yearbooks and know they disappeared. Feel like that would have felt more like a conspiracy that way.

But honestly, really loved it. Not perfect but did what it was doing really well. Snaps all round.

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