Heed this warning. Seriously. If you are someone who needs to like your protagonist, this book - and Sales's books in general - are not for you. If you need books where bad actions are justly punished and all the right moral lessons are learned, this book isn't for you. This book made me angry, made me pause, think, and question; it is not an easy book to read.

Winter is a privileged white, Jewish girl, National Spelling Bee Champion, and on track to go to a great college. Until one night she posts a racially-offensive joke online - suggesting that it is surprising for a black person to win the Spelling Bee - and it goes viral. In the immediate aftermath, Winter's life is, quite literally, ruined by her actions. She receives death and rape threats, loses friends and (avoiding spoilers) way more than she could believe possible.

Here's the thing, though: Winter is both the villain and the victim of this book, but she is definitely not a perfect version of either. She's kinda an asshole, and one who takes a long time to own up to her own bigotry. She is selfish and deeply flawed. Sales asks if we as the reader can find sympathy for people who fuck-up big time, who are not particularly likeable AND are guilty of that most villainous of all crimes - being privileged.

It’s difficult for me, honestly. Yes, I am white, but I’m also from a poor, working class background. My grandparents grew up in poverty. I was the first person in my family to go to university and I funded my entire course with a student loan. I struggle to sympathize with wealthy, over-educated characters. But I do like that Sales never takes the easy black-and-white road. I can also very easily see why other readers will not.

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say is undoubtedly a very timely book. I don't know that it was the best choice for a white author to write this particular story and have the central incident be racial because that is going to turn the discussion to race and not what this book is actually about, which is how good intentions can hurt just as much as bad ones, and how the only worthy apology is one that takes responsibility and stops making excuses. This could be about anything - racism, sexism, homophobia, a rape joke, whatever - the main message remains the same.

“I am repentant, though. I feel repentant.”
“You feel guilty,” Kevin told me. “It’s not the same.”


Many characters - both white characters and POC - repeatedly challenge Winter's worldview. Though I never thought she deserved rape threats and to lose what she did, it is still extremely hard to find sympathy for Winter for a lot of the book. There's even a certain sense of satisfaction to be had in her finding out that actions have consequences and you should think before you tweet. She refuses to accept that she did anything wrong, blames others for what happened to her, and offers terrible fake apologies that are all about herself and what she intended. She is called out on her privilege, her prejudices, and her ignorance until she finally learns to acknowledge what she did and the hurt she caused.

It's a book about learning that you don't get to explain what you meant online because that doesn't matter to the people you hurt. Winter just has to say "I'm sorry" and "I was wrong" with no "buts" or explanations after that.

However, this is still mostly about the dark side of call-out culture and internet-shaming. Sales opens a discussion through Winter about what someone who makes a dumb comment online really deserves. At what point does call-out culture become bullying? Is it when thousands of people harass a teenage girl on twitter? Is it when she gets rape threats? What, exactly, is a just punishment for someone like Winter who says something offensive online?

Of course, this book does not offer answers as such. If it did, it would have solved a major issue of our time. It is more an exploration and a discussion than a message.

The book points out that there is no police force regulating online harassment. Anyone can say anything and get away with it. Even outright lies. It exposes the Internet in all its wonderful terrible glory - everything about it that makes it a place to foster discussion, to share ideas and different ways of thinking, also makes it a place where it is easy to bully and harass. The internet is an anarchic society - where freedom and lawlessness rule side by side and vigilante justice is the only kind.

Rating this book is where it gets tricky. The author gives us a lot of food for thought and explores the many grey areas of this timely issue. There is also a lot of diversity with many people of colour, gay characters, and the love interest uses a wheelchair. The MC is nauseatingly unlikable at times but the author makes it clear from the start that she is meant to be - she is not being sold to us as a likable character. BUT I have to say that I absolutely despised the last chapter. Winter's last action of the novel suggests she is sympathizing with someone who (view spoiler). I don't think that was the right way to end this story and it weakened some of the important steps the book had taken.

So I'm going with 3 1/2 stars. But please take it with a pinch of salt-- it's not a perfect representation of my thoughts on this book, though I rarely feel like star ratings are.

TW: racism; homophobia; rape threats; animal abuse.

From the beginning I thought this would be a strong novel depicting the rise and fall of a teenage girl who makes a racist joke on the Internet that becomes viral within hours. Instead, we meet Winter who is self-centered and plays the victim throughout the book. There wasn't any character development because she still classified herself as a victim by the end. She didn't see a wrong in the racist joke she posted, and spent months wallowing in pity over how unfair it was that the whole world hated her. This novel would have been so much better if Winter had realized her mistake right away and worked her way through apologies, redemption, and change. Winter and her sister Emerson were extremely rude to their mother on multiple occasions, and shockingly, the mother didn't care. The first instance happened within the first few pages. Winter yells at her mom for not returning her phone to her asap (after she showed her the thousands of messages she was receiving) and later the mother comes into Emerson's room and Emerson grumbled something along the lines to "Don't you knock?" These girls were both disrespectful to everyone except themselves and the novel was such a disappointment because of Winter's personality and mindset.

I received an ARC of If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say from NetGalley.

I enjoyed this book. I like Leila Sales and this one didn't disappoint. I was drawn in from the beginning. I didn't think that Winter was a bad person, she just made a bad decision. I felt sorry for Winter and everything that happened to her. It took her awhile but she became her own person by deciding how to write her apologies and finding her words again. It did feel a little angsty at times, but Winter had to figure out on her own that she was at fault for her actions. In the end it teaches a valuable lesson about taking responsibility for the actions that you commit.

Very good YA novel that illustrates the consequences of social media posts. I enjoyed the novel and found it to be very relevant for today's generation.

"Of couse I wasn't that terrible person. I couldn't be. I was a good girl. I'd never once gotten detention. I didn't even run in the halls. I was nothing like the person being described online."
Before we go any further, I want you to understand this: this is not a good book.

Do you ever read something so atrociously god-awful that when you finish it, all you can do is just sit there, stare at your kindle, and think what the hell. WhatthehellwhatthehellWHATTHEHELL and how in the name of all that is good in the world did this book ever get published? how did this not get thrown immediately in the bin of every publishing agency it got sent to?

I try not to swear often, but if any book deserves to be cussed out like a sailor, it’s If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say.

Guess what?? I have N O T H I N G nice to say about this book. ;)))))

I definitely am opposed to burning books, but if anyone ever asked me, “if you could choose one book and you HAD to burn every copy of it that exists, which would you choose?” I would know immediately which book I’d pick. I’d strike the match and this novel would be done for. Goodbye forever. If the entire world were destroyed and the only reading material left was this story, I would never read again. My kindle feels dirty now. I don’t want this thing anywhere near me.

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say fulfills the wet dream of every person who has unironically said they’re anti-PC, anti-SJW, anti-anti, or anti-whatever else conservatives are calling people that don’t put up with bigotry nowadays. God forbid people, like, call others out for saying racist stuff on the Internet. GOD FORBID there’s actually, like, consequences for the stuff you say. God freaking forbid.

I requested this book without reading the blurb. I saw that the cover was in the same palette as the bi pride flag and assumed that it was a story about a bi girl. It wasn’t.

Instead it was an “observation” of “internet-shaming culture” or whatever the frick that means (disclaimer: yes I know what it means, please don’t try to explain it to me. I know).

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say is the story of a white girl named Winter, who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee five years ago. After the spelling bee this year, she makes a racist tweet, goes to bed, and wakes up to realize that the tweet has gone viral, she’s been memed, and everyone hates her. I’m not going to state the tweet in this review because I don’t want to type out the words, but suffice it to say, it was bad. Winter (now deemed “White Winter” by the internet) doesn’t know what she did wrong, and refuses to take the blame for her actions. As her world starts to come down arund her Along the way she does some more blatantly racist stuff, and has a “character arc” where she realizes that: omg! what she said was racist and gross and wrong!

Sounds like a pretty daring story to try to write, and idk maybe it isn’t a book that ever SHOULD be written (why are we giving people who say this racist stuff a voice??) but honestly what gets me really in a bend is the fact that the moral isn’t “don’t be racist” it’s “hey, um, maybe you shouldn’t attack people on the Internet :/ even if they’re saying racist, mean things, that doesn’t mean you should be mean back :///”

Which really freaking sucks!!

Listen, there’s a point in the book where one of the characters describes the Internet as a “lawless land.” And when the people of the Internet decide that someone is bad, they crucify them and they don’t ever get redeemed. But listen, even though that may be one of the iffy parts of the “law of the Internet” or whatever you want to call it, the Internet being a “lawless land” is actually a POSITIVE thing. You wanna know why? Because people can educate. People can be educated. I have learned so much more about the privilege that I have as a white person because of the Internet, but instead of this book making it all about white privilege and coming to terms with it and the good parts of the Internet it decided to go with the “uwu all those SJWs getting mad over everything omg just shut up it’s not a big deal :///” and that’s. bad.

The entire book is full of Winter justifying her racist thoughts and actions with "I'm not that bad of a person!!" and "if you knew me you would know I'm not racist!" here's the deal tho: every white person is racist because every white person has systematic privilege. and Winter actively REFUSES to believe this.

We’re expected to feel pity for this Winter girl, but I don’t. She has done nothing to deserve my pity. She has done nothing to deserve the reader’s pity. I don’t feel an inch of pity. I feel disgust.

Another awful thing about this is, hey!! the 2 (two) poc characters are basically stereotypes to help further the white woman’s narrative. Literally from the first scene with Jason, all his character does is fill the role of “black person helping educate their white friend on racism” stereotype. Corey is just there to fill the “see, not ALL black people are angry about this” role. That’s so awful??? Like jfc write a freaking book.

This book is also full of other characters supporting Winter in her racism, saying "hey, it's not that bad." and that's so annoying to read?? like one character says "'But if I had to say? I think what you did is no worse than what a zillion other people do every day... You made the mistake that so many people make online, of thinking you were just talking to your friends.'" This quote effectively makes it seem like that the problem is Winter not realizing that social media isn't private, not that she freaking said that racist stuff in the first place. That's so wrong??

And listen, I am usually pretty lenient when it comes to characters saying SOME crappy stuff, as long as it’s part of their character arc, but Winter took being problematic way over the line, has no redeeming qualities, and here’s the deal: if you want readers to appreciate the arc, they character has to secretly be a good person on the inside. Which Winter isn’t. She’s just not. And the things she said at the beginning, middle, and end of this book are I N E X C U S A B L E. I literally don't even care about her character arc. Character arcs are my favorite thing in books but she is such an awful human being for the first ~90% of this that I don't even care. She’s a bad person who said bad things and doesn’t want to freaking take the blame. I hate her and if I had a shelf called “worst main characters” she would be top of the freaking list.

People of color don’t deserve to have to see a book like this, with these opinions, in print. It’s bigotry at it’s worst and I can’t believe it’s being published. This entire concept, everything about this is so backwards-thinking that I’m surprised it wasn’t a thing in 2014. Screw this book. I hate that I read this. I hate it so much.

Quick impressions: I think this is a conversation-starting, thought-provoking story that explores the question of what happens after someone says/does something stupid online. In today's call-out culture, the phenomenon of people getting dragged and then labeled/ridiculed/fired keeps happening again and again. I think the main character is purposefully clueless, because if she were more aware she wouldn't have made the error she made to begin with... Her non-apology (mentioning no ill intent, literally saying she has two black best friends, defending herself and giving excuses) is like a hilarious checklist of how NOT to apologize, but that's the point. She *is* a privileged, educated white girl who doesn't understand... until she does much later on in the story.

Sales delves into issues such as why not every person of color has to find something offensive or problematic for it to be considered such; why non-white friends shouldn't have to explain privilege to their white friends; how intentions don't matter to those who are hurt by actions; and how people can grow, change, learn from their mistakes and truly make amends.

I can imagine middle and high school teachers assigning this book discussing it with their classes. The book has a "ripped from the headlines" feel that makes it particularly relevant. I don't think Winter is supposed to be likable for a lot of the book, but there are reasons for that. She grows up, though, and learns to see beyond herself.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY is as timely as it gets. Winter Halperin's life is turned upside down after she posts an insensitive tweet, interpreted by the public (and one of her close friends) as racist -- and as she soon learns, her harmless intentions don't matter when the effect of her words is so offensive. This definitely feels like an "issue" book at times, especially when we get the backstory on everyone at Winter's Revibe rehabilitation center. But teen readers may gravitate toward such a hot topic.