sugar

no matter how you look at it this was a really bad book and it's insulting that it was made into a tv series to be consumed by easily-manipulated suicidal teenagers

pros:
— every scene between libby and ben was intense and emotional and the discomfort/relief present was portrayed beautifully
— realistic depiction of sibling dynamics is always appreciated

cons:
— the whodunnit sucked and made no sense and the mom was so stupid and even if it was desperation or whatever did she really not think that at least one of her kids might wake up and be like “who is this random person in our house” and DIE
— the book got very miserable and very boring by the middle of the story and libby really just isn't that fun of a main character and understand i am very forgiving of imperfect main female leads but it took a long time for me to believe that libby cared about her siblings at all (especially her sisters, which, not going to lie, rubbed me the wrong way because she grew up believing her BROTHER murdered them)
— gillian flynn is the gone girl author right? i don't think she likes women. like at all. diondra is the obvious example of this but the fact that libby is somehow the special magical sibling that ben liked and they have this like... undying connection even two decades later... hmmm...
— ok if it isn't obvious i am very rubbed that ben did not like his other siblings more and even libby took 4/5 of the entire damn book to confess any emotional attachment to michelle and debby like this book would have been way better if i knew libby actually liked her sisters early on
— like come on the entire premise of this book rides on the fact that libby was the sister that survived because if it had been debby that had lived none of this would have happened
— all the adults in this book were kind of stupid and here's the thing. you have a book from the perspective of kids, right? and the proper way to handle this kind of dynamic is to obviously place them side-by-side against the adults in their life that failed them and examine what went wrong in a scooby-doo fashion of “the adults are useless”. that didn't happen here, not only were the adults useless but there was also no real feeling of “the kids didn't deserve what happened to them” until near the end
— and even THEN the character i'm talking about (ben) immediately fucking ruins himself. like, for two whole seconds, in the scene with him writing down krissi day (i thought this was good writing actually) and some realization that he was just planning his daughter's life–i thought, wow, ben is actually a good guy? and everyone kind of ruined his life? and he is the worst treated character and definitely has my heart? and then the reveal with him covering up for michelle's murder happened and my sympathy died.

this is unironically one of the worst books i've ever read in my life

pros:

- rowan is a really good protagonist!!! i really like her character. she's smart, charming, and is a very believable teenager. her friendship with james is also really nice and i always appreciate characters in fiction that are like me.
- rowan's parents are also hella cool lol.
- the plot was really engaging and fun and i honestly was freaking out at the end of that one chapter when i thought joseph was going to get hurt.
- JOSEPH!!!! i loved joseph and ruby so much they were so delightful and my heart was going out for them i honestly wish they had their own pov chapters
- ruby is a little rascal and well-written annoying child characters are always appreciated
- great commentary on being biracial and how that coincides with visual oppression/personal self-discovery
- in general the pacing of this book was really good, i finished it in like three hours and i was engaged the entire time

cons:
- i am not sure if the author is mixed but i am making the assumption that she is white. i am a little tired of reading books by white authors on poc, especially black, issues. latham did a really good job with this book but i definitely would have been more comfortable had this been written by a different author.
- on that note, the amount of times some variation of the n-word was used lmaooooooooo if the author is indeed white.... ok
- i am not really that sold or happy with the whole “vernon is actually black” twist idk it works and its supposed to tie into geneva's whole “this is a black man” mystery but it feels a little rushed
- also for that matter, i liked will a lot and was happy with him as a character overall but i'm tired of white povs in books surrounding racial issues. i don't care if will was one of the “good whites”. i really couldn't tell if the author wanted us to think that will was bigoted at the start or he was always like a good kid or something i think him being half-native was supposed to make us feel bad for the clarence situation but i felt like... idk my dudes the only reason he was nice to ruby was because she reminded him of his dead sister so that's a hmmmmmmmmm
- also the whole ordeal with will's dad like Yes we get it there are Good Whites this good white married an Indian woman what a good White like i know not all white people were kkk members in 1921 and there probably were a lot of people who sympathized with black people at the time but it's a little annoying considering that it comes off as being white savior-y especially near the end of the novel
- i liked arvin and rowan's relationship but it's probably the most underdeveloped part of the book. i think the author was trying to tie arvin's death into current racial issues and develop rowan as a character but it just felt completely disconnected from the rest of the book, especially with the very shoe-horned “arvin's aunt's friend is ruby goodhope's daughter” reveal. the book needed to be longer if it wanted to work in a plotline like that.
- i did really like this book i swear but i also feel like... hmmm... the usage of indigenous people in this book... not the best