At first, I thought I would like Night Shift. The story between Meggie and Sabine starts off strong in a way I think many young women can empathize with—trying to impress your impossibly cool coworker/acquaintance and convince them to be your friend. During times like this, there is admittedly a weird sense of heightened self-awareness where you go above and beyond to stand out to them and feel a tinge of jealousy when others are able to stand out more than you.

But boy, did Night Shift quickly take a turn for the worse. The plot transitioned into something pointless, and ultimately, completely plotless.

Meggie becoming more and more obsessed with Sabine and reckless for no logical reason was frustrating. Sabine popping in and out of the picture purely to antagonize Meggie, play on her obsession, and lead her on when the relationship evolves was increasingly frequent and annoying. Maybe it worked the first few times or so, but the more it took place, the more over it and exasperated I became.

This is a book with truly no plot, just vibes (bad ones). And its use of trauma and detailed SA was so unnecessarily gratuitous and revolting, I couldn’t help but be so insanely disgusted. There was literally no rhyme or reason for it. It literally felt like it was added for shock value to show how far “gone” Meggie had become. Bleh.

The best way I can describe Night Shift is that it’s basically just a really, really, REALLY gratuitously vile 500 Days of Summer.