Do you ever wish that you were Jared? 19? 

Cuz this book made me wish I was?

I knew I shouldn't have bothered, I knew I should have taken booktok's word when they said this books was a dumpster fire. But I had some time to kill and figured I'd TRY to give ol' Nate the benefit of a doubt with the free exerpt you could read (he's now removed that option I believe... telling) even though this is FAR from my usual genre. 

Never again. 

This book reads like a fifteen year old boy who just discovered Alpha bro podcasts but also is dating a girl who is into crystals wrote a self insert victim fantasy. The author has said something to the effect that this book IS loosely(?) based off his own healing journey. So its entirely likely that is is a dramatized version of his life as it existed in his head. It is trying SO HARD to be intellectual, and thought provoking while being so surface level about those issues that it's genuinely painful. I was having more insightful conversations about the human experience at sleepovers when I was 9. 

I forced myself past the age gap (19f 35ishM), I squinted past the fact that the love interest wears her hair in pigtails 🤮, heck I was willing to ignore the objectivly bad writing cause maybe there would be a moral EVENTUALLY. 

My breaking point was when he writes "when you grow up with a single mom and are educated by female teachers you learn pretty quickly to associate your sense of worth with a woman's approval." 
This was prefaced by him likening women to an addictive substance such as alcohol or weed. Something that could take over your life and cause you to completely change who you are to fit them. So he is blatantly, with his full face forward, blaming single mothers and female teachers on his compulsive need to objectify women.

Every f*cking day people get on to God's given internet and prove Sigmund Freud right. This is a sin for which I can never forgive! 

But that's a whole other issue that I have neither the time nor the patience to get into.

Anyway yeah, don't waste your time here. This story is not special. You can find better writing in a bad Wattpad novel. Not even a mediocre Wattpad novel, a BAD Wattpad novel largely overtakes this. Trust your gut and let this book fall into obscurity where it belongs.