Reviews

I liked this more than I expected to. I picked it for BOTM in (apparently) May 2020. I’m so impressed by the unique voice and the writing, and how the pain of the two protagonists is captured in the tension of their experiences.

jhaverinen's review

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emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

lovelykd's review against another edition

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4.0

Bunny and Michael form an unlikely friendship, based on the mutual desire to be loved and accepted, but the two soon find that their love could lead both to deadly consequences.

I was surprised how enthralled I was with this story.

It’s not reinventing the wheel in any way—honestly, if you’ve read one teen angst story, you’ve read a million—but the depth of introspection displayed by the main character, Michael, is what makes the story so interesting and captivating to read.

It’s clear he’s already been through a lot, and the world has no trouble labeling him as “other”, but he’s still determined to figure it out. Even though he stumbles and falls quite a bit along the way.

At times his journey is cringeworthy but it never ceases to be real and, beneath it all, you can see his humanity and you’re rooting hard for him to figure it out.

By contrast, Bunny falls into the category of many teenage girls: she’s looking for validation that she’s pretty and lovable. However, her physical stature—she’s six-foot three—has made her peers view her as a weird anomaly.

If not for her prowess on the volleyball team, she’d likely be considered an outcast altogether.

Add to that, a rich father with a drinking problem—who only “sees” Bunny in relation to her status as an athlete—and a dead mother with a tawdry backstory, and Bunny is definitely going through some things.

When he and Bunny meet, Michael is at-first taken aback, but is soon enamored of the oddly forward Bunny. The two become best friends and soon begin to spend most of their time together.

There’s an incident, which turns everything on a dime, but that incident was, at least in my view, less a major plot point, than it was the lens through which everything and everyone else became more clear.

Nothing and no one in North Shore are who they appear to be, and that makes the desire, of both Bunny and Michael, to be accepted, by those in their small community, that much more tragic.

As the end nears, Michael and Bunny are both forced to figure out who they are and where each will fit within the lives of the other.

Towards the end, the story began to drag just a bit, and the ending itself was a bit abrupt for my taste, but overall this was a well-written coming-of-age type story about two teens struggling to become adults in a world where no one is willing to show them how.

Thanks to Edelweiss+ for the advanced e-Galley of this work. Opinion is my own.