My review: ★★☆☆☆
Goodreads review: ★★★★☆ (4.25)
Publisher: PanMacmillan Australia
Publish date: September 2017
Genre: YA, Contemporary
TW: misogyny, slut shaming, fat shaming, rape, drug/alcohol addiction
Other: LoveOzYA (x3!)
“I need to pop the delusion bubble and grow some fangs”
Ady, Kate, and Clem are all student’s at St Hilda’s. They have all been targeted by PSST, a toxic website that deals in gossip and lies. They are also all in the Year 10 Wellness program.
When I finished this book I had a lot of mixed emotions. I honestly did not know how I was going to rate such a book. I put the review off countless times because of the emotion that came from thinking about this book. It was a bit of a rollercoaster.
Because here is the thing. As far as the plot goes, I honestly found it too slow and quite cliche.
As a YA book, I found incredibly compelling, informative, honest, big-issue-tackling, full of positive female rep, and I L O V E D the bi rep.
And then there was this one scene. It was only one (incredibly short) paragraph long. It tore me apart, sucker-punched me out of nowhere, and was never addressed or discussed ever again. In that book or in the countless number of reviews I have read about this book since. That one scene made me so incredibly upset and disappointed at this book.
Okay so let’s do this one by one.
The plot revolves around three teenage girls who attend a private school. There is much school drama. There is a website, called PSST, which honestly reminded me of the Burn Book in Mean Girls. Except more public. There is a Wellness Class run by the school, which is attempting to make all girls in that grade besties. And then there is all the drama of life decisions, self-discovery, and growing up.
I’m not trying to downplay the plot. But this has been done. Granted – there is a lot which this book does brilliantly (which I will get to), but a day-to-day highschool story just ran too slow for me.
A lot of the positive feedback on this book concentrates on ALL THE GOOD IMPORTANT THINGS that this book brings to light. Of which I believe the authors deserve applause for.
There is, of course, the cyberbullying aspect. PSST posts lots of trash that almost always involves some sort of female shaming – whether it be commenting on people’s supposed sex lives, on their bodies, or on embarrassing events that may have occurred.
Basically, the website humiliates and tears down others. It’s disgusting, but I love the way it brought out the truest form of friendship and support between the MCs. It was also interesting to see the comparison between online comments and then IRL comments.
There is the self-image aspect. Are you popular and pretty? Are you skinny? Do you do what’s cool? What if you want to explore and/or flaunt passions that are deemed as uncool? Does your friend group make you fit in? Is what you show to others the real you?
There is the feminism aspect. Brought to light mostly by the website slandering, the idea of women being judged – their sex life being judged, their actions being judged – based on how they dress or act or even just the fact that they are a female is a big thing in this book. And that is a brilliant thing.
There is the sexuality aspect. Not only do I love books that are inclusive of non-hetero sexuality, I L O V E books inclusive of bisexuality. And yes I am biased. It wasn’t explored as much as it could have been, but in a way, I related just because it wasn’t a big dramatic coming out thing. Because it’s not like that for everyone. Instead it just a sweet, subtle side story. Also, I freaking adore Max.
And then there was that scene.
While this is not a big plot point, I’m going to hide the discussion for those who wish to read the book first.
About halfway through the book, one of the MCs is raped. The entire scene is about a page long, but at no point is it made explicitly obvious to the reader. Following the scene, there is a comment from another MC about sex, but it’s pretty much implied as consensual.
After initially reading the scene, I was honestly so caught out of nowhere that I stopped reading and straight away flicked through all the Goodreads reviews to find some sort of discussion about the scene. I found nothing.
This honestly made me feel worse about the whole thing. I felt invalidated by my reaction to the scene. My upset and anger at experiencing this out of nowhere were worsened by the idea that no one else felt it was something important enough to discuss.
I read the rest of the book, desperate to find some sort of reference to the scene occurring but there was nothing.
My big issue is that this is one of those rape scenes that those involved will tell themselves it was nothing. Other people will tell you it’s nothing. This is a lie.
In the scene, the other person involved asks the MC if she is okay. It also says he is not paying attention to her. She does not deny that she is okay. She does not say she is okay. This is not consent. The inner dialogue shows that she does not want this. She feels “overwhelmed”.
“Overpowered and blocked and chaotic, like the world is tilting, like I’m falling or maybe flying. Things are happening too fast.”
This is not consent. This is rape. This is a rape scene. This is a rape scene that nobody has pointed out or acknowledged. This is something that is potentially triggering and harmful to readers.
If you are to include something in a book that is of this nature, be clear and explicit about what it is. Do not put in this scene and then leave out all further discussion of it. Do not refuse to name it.
By doing this, many book reviews and discussions will choose not to discuss or label the scene for what it is. That means that trigger warnings will not be included. That means more people are going to be punched out of nowhere, just like I was.
Before this scene, this book was between 3- and 4-stars. Because this book contains so many important discussion points that should be included in YA books.
In many ways, this is a good book. But that scene ruined it for me. The ways the authors chose to handle the scene ruined it for me.
And honestly, it’s a shame.
Have you read this book? What are your thoughts? What do you think about trigger warning inclusions? Have you been caught off
guard by a book before? Let me know!
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