We Were Promised Spotlights

DNF @ 30%

I got this book as an Advance Review Copy from Edelweiss+ back in late July 2019 and put off reading it for a long time due to the atrocious formatting of the edition they sent to my kindle. Since I recently lamented how little lesbian representation I'd read, I decided to give this book another try and push through the formatting issues.

Unfortunately, it's just not what I want from a book at all.

Taylor, the main character, is a terrible person with only the vaguest sense of self-awareness about what a little monster she really is. She constantly body shames and slut shames others, not just in her head but also aloud. She revels in being a mean girl. She stalks a girl who's openly a lesbian (and potentially her ex, though Taylor herself is closeted) while also partaking in and tolerating the horrific bullying aimed at the girl for her sexuality. She creepily obsesses over her (presumably) straight best friend to the point she prefers rubbing all over her and sleeping close when they're both drunk but isn't as close otherwise because she doesn't want her disturbingly intense sexual interest to be obvious. And she leads a boy who genuinely likes her on, dating him and pretending to be attracted to him.

But still all of that pales in comparison to why I decided I cannot stand to spend even one more second reading this character's narrative.

Taylor is apparently the kind of despicable person who outs another lesbian who was nothing but kind to her - and does so using slurs, at that. Why? Because she's too stupid to realize there are options other than "run and tell the mean girls that this one is 'a lesbo'" when the girl who was kind to her asks if she's into girls. Telling the truth may not feel like an option to her because she's closeted herself, but surely ignoring the question or simply lying would have been better and not made her come across as such a gross piece of garbage.

I'm aware that internalized homophobia exists. I'm aware people do this shit. But I have no interest in reading about it in a first person narrative style where the character who's supposed to be the protagonist is actually the villain doing it. Stories where I hate the main character are just too emotionally draining, and this book doesn't interest me enough in any other aspect to convince me the journey would be worthwhile.

In addition to this, I found the writing style very frustrating to follow. Sometimes, it seemed to hop from the ‘present' (actually around the late 90s or early 00s, going by pop culture anachronisms and others' reviews) to the past and back again with no true indication it was doing so. Other times, the emotions or motives described just didn't feel genuine. Overall, I just wasn't impressed and I disliked Taylor from the first moment she belittled someone else for their weight.

(Silly yet legally obligatory disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Very clearly, I was not in any way pushed to give a positive review. This review of the portion I read is my own, honest opinion.)