I’m going to do my best to keep this review brief. “People Like Her” had so much potential: you have an influencer whose popularity has earned her a stalker that believes she doesn’t deserve any of the “happiness” Emmy displays on her Instagram feed. That she shouldn’t have her happy family, glamorizing skating by while raising two little kids. There was so much room in there to weave a complex thriller around the pitfalls of internet safety when you are a “public figure” as well as the danger of over curating your online presence, and how social media can often turn loved ones into props for the person doing the posting. The authors TRIED to do some of that, but they failed to deliver on the core of their story: a thriller with a plot.

Here’s the thing: both of the main characters were some of the most self-involved, whiny, and privileged characters I’ve ever read. You don’t see Emmy ever build her platform, where a lot of the struggles and pitfalls and the really dark side of social media come in. Instead, we see her as already famous; she has an agent, and is doing commercials and podcasts. She's already in a position where she can pay her mortgage with her “influencing” rather than struggling to figure out what to do with all the “free” gifts she’s given that she can’t actually use to pay her bills. I felt like the authors missed a big opportunity there, and instead just crafted two characters that I found completely unlikable. There was nothing redeeming about either of them. And the stalker is no better, like, of course obviously, they're the bad guy here, but their reasons for hating Emmy is teased out so slowly that I found myself just as annoyed and bored by them as the rest of the cast.
 
For a book that is about 275 pages, the first 200 pages are incredibly slow. How do you even do that in a thriller? All the characters do is go on rambling tangents about how their privileged lives are annoying with very little connected back to how the social media aspect of it plays a role in any kind of negative way. All of it reads as a very long humble brag which never sits well with me. All of the mystery and thriller aspects of this novel came pretty much in the last two chapters, which ultimately made me feel like this book was a waste of time as it delivered on very little of what the synopsis promised.

Also, as a word of caution, there are lots of discussions around child death and miscarriages, and fertility issues in this novel. So, if those are topics you find upsetting, just be forewarned. I can’t say how these authors treat those subjects as I haven’t experienced those problems, but I know it can be delicate for lots of people. That being said, I did like that last chapter of this novel, even if I really did not like the epilogue and the “reward” Emmy and Dan get. In fact, the one chapter where the book actually had the stalker acting on some of their long discussions of hate for Emmy is the only thing that is saving this book, and why I’m giving it 2 stars. There was just too little of this story I liked and felt utterly let down in terms of the “thriller”. Oh well, it’s a shame that this novel couldn’t deliver on its potential.

I’m really late to the party on this book, but hey! At least I got here, right? “Simon vs.” is a cute, contemporary self-discovery book that had me on the verge of tears on occasion. We get a close-up view of Simon who KNOWS he’s gay, but no one else does. When he finds a Tumblr post from his school from another gay boy, he responds, and a whirlwind email pen pal relationship ensues. But there’s one problem: these boys don’t actually know who each other are, and because neither is out to their friends and family, they decide to keep their identities secret. But part of the thrill is getting to know someone without fear of judgment, because they don’t really know you, right? But then these adorable boys catch a case of feels, and suddenly the excitement of anonymity begins to slip away… Except anonymity is only fun with Blue, Simon’s crush, but that secret is important for Simon to keep from the wider school. Now he just has to keep the guy blackmailing him from spilling the beans to everyone… This story was endearing, and fun, and quick, and each time I was CONVINCED I knew who Blue was, the author did the old switcher-roo, which kept this otherwise straight forward story exciting.

This is only the second book I’ve read that’s written in verse, but it’s my first book from this author, so I went into this pretty blind. While I still can’t say anything about the structure of the verses and how that plays into the story tempo, I can say that this was an immensely powerful book. “Clap When You Land” is the story of two sisters who only learn of each other’s existence when unthinkable tragedy and grief pulls them together. The story gives us both sister’s POV so the reader can really see how these two girls, connected by blood, view their world and home, their parents and culture, and how they process grief and betrayal differently. I felt Acevedo captured the different voices of her main characters incredibly well and how she captured their grief, their anger, and just the rawness of their tragedy in an incredible and moving way, but the heavy to the light ratio did seem just a tad disproportional to me come the end.

This book is beautifully painful, and often painfully beautiful, and no, that’s not the same thing. This is my first foray into Schwab, which might be weird considering that I own pretty much all her books, but they stare at me in open judgement as I slowly, ever so slowly, whittle down my TBR, and then sometimes throw that out the window with books like this. All this to say, I didn’t entirely know what to expect from this author, or this book, just that I admire Schwab and her candor, and therefore auto-buy her books. So I can’t say if this is always Schwab’s voice, but my goodness, the PAIN that she manages to stuff into her main characters cut me deeply. This is such a millennial book, and I mean that in a good way. It often feels that millennials, more than other generations, suffer from this panic and anxiety driven desire to be enough, to do enough, to leave a mark, to be remembered, and then you bundle that up with the very uniquely human drive to avoid death, where we are never ready for the end… This book spoke to me on a level where I felt seen and heard, even though Schwab was doing all the talking.

“Black Girl Unlimited” is the ‘based on a true story’ life of the author herself, with a fantasy-magical realism overlay to everything, especially the traumatic parts. This book is devastating, but not in a bad way, but more in the way of a gifted girl, hating how she looks because she is a dark skinned black girl, believing she is an ugly beast because she isn’t lighter and doesn’t have ‘good hair’, kind of way. It’s heartbreaking to see how she views herself, not to mention watching her family’s struggle with racism, and Echo’s parents being drunks and addicted to cocaine. That’s not to say the book isn’t laced with hope, because it is! But the story is primarily focused on the young Echo and her struggle to survive in a world that has been stacked against her. There are some very heavy topics here alongside the systematic racism Echo faces, such as: drug abuse, sexual assault, and the rape of minors. All of these topics fit with the world Echo lives in, so they aren’t there just for shock value, but if those are sensitive topics for you, be forewarned. This book also happens to be my first foray into magical realism, so it’s very possible that I just don’t “get” certain things, but to me, the magic was more a metaphor then actually, well, magical.