This was - wow. Just, wow. This book from the beginning had me in a chokehold. The struggles that Julian went through and the emotions he felt were so real and his emotions were written so well that his decisions didn't seem random or out-of-the-ordinary or forced into the storyline.

There were a lot of pop culture references made in the story. Normally I don't really care for pop culture references in books, usually because I don't feel like they're done properly, but this was great. The pop culture references were frequent, but they fit in with the story in a way that didn't seem forced. I shouldn't be surprised, and I guess I'm not, considering this was contemporary YA, but that's part of the reason I tend to avoid contemporary YA.

I'm glad I read this, though. It had been in my library for a while and now I'm mad at the fact that it took me this long to finally read it.