Received from NetGalley, thanks!

I can see what the author was trying to do here, and for me it just didn’t work.

I didn’t particularly like the MC, I didn’t buy the romance, and it just felt like everything came together into a nice happy ending too easily.  Perhaps part of that is the fact it’s YA and I haven’t been reading as much YA lately.  There is just this disconnect for me with a lot of YA these days, so it takes a lot more for me to enjoy YA than it probably used to.

So, basically, this book is written around the song Skater Boy by Avril Lavigne, but make it queer.  It should have worked for me, but the MC was just too much of an asshole and also really inconsistent with certain things, that left me a bit confused.  I understand he’s dealing with trauma, but he just treats everyone so badly that it’s really difficult to accept his redemption arc.  I also didn’t like his group of friends, and again, they were terrible bullies, who also get a redemption arc, that I also didn’t believe.  And the romance was very meh.  It’s one of the few times when I’ve read a romance where I’m actually rooting for the couple to not end up together, because I don’t buy the romance and think they would be better off with other people.

So, overall, the story didn’t work for me this time.