The only reason this wasn't a five star read for me is that it was kind of slow at the beginning. I understand they were laying a lot of ground work for the characters and their development, which is good and necessary. However, I wish there was a way to do that while also moving the story along at a better pace. I almost gave up on it just about halfway through because it felt like we were stuck going in circles and it seemed pretty obvious where the story was going to end up and I was bored wondering why we weren't just getting there already. I decided to take the very good advice in my book group chat and keep going because they said they knew what I was saying and they promised it was going to "get so much better"! I am very, very happy to report they were 100% correct and it would have been a mistake to DNF when I wanted to. The characters were great, especially Mallory, Mitzi (wish we had more of her, maybe a whole book about Mitzi? Could be fun!), and Teddy. Not to mention the ending I'd predicted was close, but not spot on and the twists were great! The Ted thing at the end (IFYKYK) was a little odd I thought, but I guess he was dealing with his own mental struggles so I'll excuse it. All this to say: read it! I went from a possible DNF to four stars....