Homecoming

This book was a lot shorter than what I'm used to reading so I read it in one sitting. I felt thrown into a story that was not set up at all, with no story building. And then things moved both really fast and really slow at the same time. The synopsis talks about how Fiona gets “lured into the dark side” which didn't even happen until page 80 out of 105 pages. And things started to spiral and feel rushed once we got there. Also apparently going to three parties makes you a party girl who is “in the wrong crowd”. The “twist” was brought up and talked through in about 5 pages and felt brushes to the side; it didn't get unpacked at all. That's not even to mention the problems I had with the way this book handled sexual assault. This book felt like nothing but victim blaming, until the reveal that she lied??? Don't we have enough damaging narratives of people thinking that sexual assault victims are liars, and that they won't be believed? We don't need media out there encouraging that belief and reinforcing it. I just had so many problems with the way such a sensitive subject matter was handled and joked about. As well as the pacing issues. And I felt like the synopsis was kind of misleading. A good premise that really felt like it missed the mark for me.

Edit: I totally forgot about the bomb threat plot that lasted for about three pages and was then casually mentioned as nick names for the girls, but nothing really came from it? What even was the point of that? To throw off the heat from Fiona's issues? That was completely unnecessary and was something I felt like needed more unpacking than happened. This book had so many intense and sensitive topics that just didn't have the time to be able to fully be discussed in the duration of the book. It was ridiculous. SHOCK FACTOR... and forget about it five pages later.