Love, Heather

Stevie's first year of high school isn't going as planned; as if being 14 wasn't already difficult enough, her mom has started dating again, and she is slowly losing her best friend to a clique of popular kids who seem determined to humiliate and ostracize her. As her loved ones start to drift away from her, Stevie finds herself drawn in by enigmatic new girl Dee, who shares her love of teen revenge films. Together, the two start serving justice as they see fit, but it quickly starts to spiral out of control.

Petrou tackles a lot in this book, including YA staples such as difficult parental relationships and friendships falling apart, to more complicated topics like parents publicly transitioning and bullying, of both the online and in real life varieties. And it is deftly handled, for the most part: some of the social justice discourse seems plucked straight from tumblr, but that feels authentic for the age and hey, sometimes these things need to be as subtle as a brick to the head in order to be properly heard.

It's been a bit since I was 14, but I thought this book's strongest asset was how well it captured that feeling of “sort-of-still-a-kid, sort-of-kind-of-a-young-adult, completely at sea and miserable but also elated and ready to take on the world” dichotomy of being a teen. This passage, though a bit more tell-than-show, summed it up well:

“Every joke is hilarious; every shitty thing that happens to any one of us is a tragedy. I suffer terrible bouts of FOMO when I can't meet up with them. We are all up in each other's social media; we compliment one another's pics with a range of fire and heart emojis because we are the most gorgeous, hilarious, brilliant, and strong creatures any of us has ever encountered.”

That, to me, is the essence of teenage friendships and relationships: all-powerful and consuming. So it makes sense when Stevie falls so far off the track with Dee so quickly, because that's how it is when you're 14. This is why the book lost me at the 85% mark. The split personality twist, in my opinion, undermines a lot of power the book otherwise holds, especially since I'm just so sick of mental illness being treated as a plot twist. But that's just me, it may work very well for other readers, especially the targeted age range.

Overall, a solid novel that suffered from a few pacing issues and, to me, a frustrating ending, but definitely worth a look. 3.5/5

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!