Punk 57. Wow. What a ride. I loved this book to pieces honestly. Just—beautiful.

The emotional scenes are what really got to me; taking two incredibly rough, cocky characters and watching them break down, be vulnerable, and being able to come right back around again was everything to me.

The spice felt a bit abrupt at some parts, but was generally very good,

and got even better towards the end when it was rightfully placed around more vulnerable scenes.

4⭐️??

did i almost dnf this like 3 times? yes.
did i also finish it in under 2 days because i couldn't put it down? also yes.

clearly, i have a lot of conflicting feelings about this book.

i was not expecting the high school setting. tbh i spent part of this pretending the characters were in university and not high school. if tv has taught me anything it's that american high school and university are basically the same except that one of them costs a lot of money and has fraternities/sororities 😂

if you're the type of person who only reads books with MCs you can relate to, then this probably isn't for you unless you're an awful teenager with issues. there's a lot of problematic behaviour in this book, but it's a pretty accurate reflection of some peoples lived experiences. (and just because it wasn't your lived experience, doesn't mean it's not true)

you'll spend a lot of time not liking the characters, bc they are very unlikable for a lot of the book and that's kind of the point. these aren't characters who are thriving during the peak years of their lives in a perfect fictional world. they are characters who struggling to find themselves, learning who they are/who they can be, and learning who they don't want to be.

i also really appreciate the way misha's sisters death was handled. we often see grief from the pov of the parent who loses a child, but the experience of the sibling is usually forgotten. the effect that the death of a younger adult has on the siblings and how that effects all the relationships in the family is so complex. i think that was handled really well and quite accurately here.

there's a lot more floating around in my brain, but i can't get the words right for now, so maybe i'll edit this later with some more thoughts. or maybe not. who knows.

I stayed up till 3am binging this book last night and finished it as soon as I got back home after running errands today. The spice was spicyyy, but the plot was fully there. I decided to read it in between Hideaway and Kill Switch and I absolutely adored the pop ups from my favorite characters in the Devil’s Night series.

I related to Ryen so much, it physically hurt. The pain of wanting to fit in with the popular kids at school is something that I think almost everyone has experienced and I truly appreciated the way Penelope Douglas portrayed her as a character.

Since going back on my ✨meds✨, I haven’t been able to cry, but I’ll tell you what.. I was SO close to breaking down when that last plot twist hit us. The raw emotion from Misha and the devastating conversation had me yearning to be able to shed tears and if I wasn’t mentally stable thanks to a little (Dr. prescribed*) pill, I would have been bawling my eyes out.

Ready to resume my Devil’s Night reads— Penelope Douglas has quickly become one of my new favorite authors. 🖤

i read this book once a couple years ago and i loved it then, it was my first real smut book. reading again, it is still so good. the pacing is awesome and you don’t have to wait forever for the tension to build - it’s already there due to the plot! normally plot isn’t really something that authors pay too much attention to in smut novels but there are some twists in this book that make it really enjoyable beyond the hot sex.

Ryen was a terrible person and I could not for the life of me like her. Same with Misha. Just not for me… 

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I should have DNF'd but I kept expecting it to somehow get better. There were a few chapters towards the middle that seemed to grab my attention but the rest of it was unbearably slow. It read to me like someone writing really cringey and terrible fanfiction about themselves and the edgy, emo boy they had a crush on in high school. The only positive thing I can say for this book was that it was a light read and I didn't have to think at all to get through it. 

Also, this is probably on me for not looking into the story enough, but from reading the summary on the back, I assumed the main characters were young adults (maybe 20+), not teenagers. I understand it's spicy and there are several explicit parts within the story but something about a grown woman writing such detailed sexual scenes between two teens felt weird. If that's something that bothers you, skip this one.

Spoiler-filled rant ahead: the entire plot line felt just a smidge too fantastical to be believable/enjoyable. He magically creates a false identity good enough to fool school officials to get into Ryan's school? Yeah okay. And how he lied to her about who we was, even after they had started hooking up, felt rape-y and manipulative. I know it's not meant to portray such things in a positive light but I felt that the characters moved past that part a little too easily. He comes clean to her and begs for forgiveness over and over again and she accepts because he cries and tells her how much of a**hole he is?? TF? And the ending...they aren't even in their mid 20s and he of course is an Oscar-nominated song writer and famous and she has paparazzi following her around. Lame as hell.

TL, DR: this book sucked and I'm never taking recommendations from Tik Tok again.  

This book is great! I found this entire read very enjoyable and there was lots of emotion and an amazing plot twist at the end. The epilogue being five years later was the perfect addition to the end of the story. I kind of wish this book was longer and maybe even a series. This is only my second Penelope Douglas book and I continue to be amazed by her writing and her writing style is so easy to read. It’s very fast paced in this book particularly.. 
i’m rating this book a 4.75 because I honestly might read it again