Not exactly what I was expecting, and with some hesitation I say I liked the book. It was a slow crescendo of character development to the "climax", though in the end it was rather anti-climatic. I did struggle with some of the timeline. The chapters alternated between present and past, but the narrator interjected the past with her present day thoughts which at times, was confusing.
I think the draw to this book is the reader's connection to the tumultuous times as a teenager. Wanting to be liked, the difficulties of body image, the good girl wanting to be bad, first romances/crushes, teenage girl friendships that you presume will last forever.
I think I liked this book because it took me down memory lane, not that my teenage years reflected those of Cat or Marlena, but the emotional roller coaster of those times. I closed the book feeling very melancholy.
Quotes: "Privilege is something to be aware of, to fight to see beyond, but ultimately to be grateful for. It's like a bulletproof vest, it makes you harder to kill.:
"..so many people cultivate that air of intensity cut with indifference"
"She thought marriage was a 'manly' and offensive concept"
"When you grow up, who you were as a teenager either takes on a mythical importance or its completely laughable"
"Now it strikes me as a profoundly American thing - an epidemic that started as an abuse of the cure, a disease we made ourselves"
"...because I was still here. I was right here, where he'd left me."
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