This was a punch to the gut... I felt physically affected by it: chills, tears, twisting in my stomach, flinching.

The main theme of this book is one I am very sensitive to, not because I have personal experience with it (thankfully!!!), but because how much it scares me that it happens all the time, to anyone and how frequently the abusers get away with it not once but repeatedly...

“I live in a world where not being molested as a child is considered luck.”

...and despite how horrifying this reality is, people still make jokes about it! Rape scares the shit out of me. It baffles me how some people are so insensitive to it (including educated, informed people, even some of my friends), that they don't even think about how damaging it is to toss a rape joke like it is nothing, like it is a laughing matter.

Overall the plot and the characters are not new concepts, but why should they? The normalcy of these teenagers lives and troubles (family, school, parties, sex and relationships) in contrast with the frequent occurrence of verbal and physical abuse are exactly what makes you stop, think and flinch. How bitch and slut are just a way of referring to a girl, how drawing dicks and boys making sex jokes is so ok, but drawing vulvas and girls joking around about sex would be oh so shocking, how women's bodies, particularly young women's, are like public property: everyone looks, everyone comments, everyone takes pictures and shares, everyone thinks they can touch, all without consent...

“But boys will be boys, our favorite phrase that excuses so many things, while the only thing we have for the opposite gender is women, said with disdain and punctuated with an eye roll.”

In the end, Alex's avenging journey and inner struggles, the writing and the emotional effect it had on me were what made this a 5* for me!

Note: Be aware of all the TW going into this book.