3.5 out of 5 stars
I received an advanced copy of this book from Epic Reads in exchange for an honest review.
This book was good, I'm just not sure it was for me. It was written well and the format was interesting. It is mostly told in the form of interviews, but has some journal entries, emails, texts, and book excerpts throughout.
Jonah is the new guy at a very prestigious private school. He just wants to be left alone and blend in, but he catches the attention of Soleil. Soleil is rich, popular, and very pretty. After a lot of hesitation, he gives in a becomes friends in Soleil, and as a result, her two best friends Miri and Penny.
The girls are obsessed with a young author's book. The author of the book, Fatima Ro, has a book signing in their town and they drag Jonah with them. When they meet Fatima they are determined to make a memorable impression. To their surprise, it works. They all become really close friends with Fatima and they cannot believe it!!
Fatima preaches about genuine human connections. She wants her friends to be inside/out with her and she claims to be inside/out with them.
The book is told from real life and the book Fatima writes after meeting the teens. So you get bits and pieces of the story from the actual people involved, and the based on real events book.
The book begins with the girls individually giving interviews to the same reporter. We gather that something drastic has happened to Jonah as a result of Fatima's book, which is based off the "precious truths" she was given from the teens. Miri thinks that Fatima had every write to write the book and publish it without their permissions, while the other two girls think they were betrayed. On top of all that Fatima is no where to be found. None of the teens are able to get ahold of her and Jonah is in a coma from getting jumped and beaten.
Throughout the whole book you can see that Fatima is just using the teens to get a good story. She constantly pushes them to do things just to see what will happen. She is always asking for information from them that they don't want to freely give at first. Of course they end up giving her the information and doing what she says because she is their idol. She seems mature and like she has life figured out. You catch glimpses from small scenes that she really doesn't. There is a scene with her dad that makes you think that maybe she is actually struggling and is pretending to have everything all together.
I felt like it was a little difficult to connect with the characters. I liked them for the most part, but I didn't feel connected to any of them. Like I was sad about Jonah's situation, but otherwise I didn't really care. I didn't feel like any of the characters had much depth or development. Like they were there just to tell the story.
I also felt that the story ended abruptly. Like there is a clear ending, but nothing was resolved? There weren't any surprises. You pretty much knew what was going on the whole time, nothing really surprised me. Jonah's end was kind of abrupt too. But I think that was more because of the lack of connection.
Like I said, the book isn't bad. It's actually written well. I just don't think it's my kind of story.
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