4.5 stars

Mindy McGinnis herself recommended me this book when I was basically like, "ma'am what do you recommend if I love your books but I am out of new ones to read????" and she was RIGHT

Jo is kind of like, the school slut. She's never even really done anything to "earn" that spot, she just grew up only fitting in with the boys, then had her nudes leaked by one of said boys... and now girls don't like her and guys don't really think the best of her either. Ya know? Even shitty adults in her life think she's "one of those girls"... there's just no winning as a teenage girl I stg

So yeah, her ex best friend Maddie is super mean to her, Maddie's friend group has always seemed catty, the boys Jo grew up with are now like... teenage boys and foul towards girls and toward each other. Her brother is back from college with a sports injury, busy with PT, her parents are pretty nice but not really present, and she's flunking out of school because no one is there to tell her not to. Things are just bad and also annoying and Jo is just coasting through life trying to have people be as least shitty as they can to her.

The dynamic shifts for Jo when Maddie goes missing. What's interesting is that things don't seem to shift for anyone else... things carry on basically as usual. Cody, Maddie's boyfriend, is still throwing parties, and the Birds, Maddie's best friends, are still attending said parties, along with the rest of the school. Everyone seems to think Maddie just ran away.

Jo doesn't think that, especially knowing what she knows about Maddie's disappearance....

So she begins working with Hudson, a former friend and a still casual acquaintance, to figure out what happened. He naturally suggests fake dating as a way for her to get back "in" with the popular crowd..... hehehe....

So it's like, serious, because of the subject matter, but also a little fun, because of the romance and Jo's inner monologue. Jo and Hudson really uncover a lot of secrets about their school, classmates, and little town.

I just really liked Jo. I like how smart she is in a lot of ways, and how clueless she is about certain things she doesn't want to think about. Her POV is so fun to read from, and I really liked her relationship with Hudson.

I also don't think you'll guess what the story behind Maddie's disappearance is!

This book is just a great study in "not like other girls" culture because even when people use that phrase as a compliment about you, really it's just an insult in the end. You've got to be unlike other girls to be special, but if you're too unlike other girls, you're trashy, so you can never really win, and Jo gets it from all sides over the course of this novel.

There's also some really sweet unexpected female friendship! Maddie's friends end up getting pretty close to Jo in a genuine way and I really enjoyed their characters.

We had some racial diversity in the side characters as well as some queer side characters, but nothing too flashy, just a few mentions.

But yeah this is a definite recommend!!