The Anti-Virginity Pact

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

What started as a book about two friends making a pact about losing their virginity before college became so much more and I'm so happy I had the lucky opportunity to read it early.

Meredith Beaumont doesn't take risks and sometimes she wonders why she's friend with Johanna, who's the exact opposite of her. One night, the two girls, after a few drinks, sign an anti-virginity pact and that's where the troubles begin.

Johanna sets her mind on losing her virginity to their hot teacher, but don't worry, you won't get teacher-student romance (which I personally despise, so thank you Kate Wismer for that!). Meredith, on the other hand, finally convinces herself to start talking again to her childhood friend Sam.

I really liked the character of Meredith, except for some poor choices she made that had me screaming: “why, why, would you do that?” The description of her anxiety was well-done and on point and I'm grateful it's being talked about without being romanticized.

One of my favorite quotes of the book is:

“Because when you're quiet, you learn to speak in short, fast sentences, because you're not sure how long people will listen to you. You get the words out as quickly as you can - sometimes so quickly, they start to slur and trip over each other, just so you won't have to be the center of attention for too long.”

As an anxious mess myself, I can't count how many times people told me to slow down while I was speaking, because I was rushing to the end, because I believed that someone else was gonna take away my spotlight soon enough.

I thoroughly enjoyed how everything was wrapped up in the end and I highly recommend this to YA lovers and everyone who ever made a pact with themselves or a friend to experience more.

Thanks again to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy!

I really wanted to like this book, unfortunately absolutely nothing about it worked for me. 3/4 of the plot points were so outlandish I couldn't suspend my disbelief even a little bit, and the ones that weren't were severely underwritten. The main characters were boring at best and unbearable at worst. This book also tried to undertake so many social issues over the span of 300 pages and didn't expand or delve into anything beyond a surface level with any of them. I've bumped this down to a one star because I honestly can't remember anything it did or that I liked about it to give it a two.