Parker Fadley was perfect...she had perfect grades, was the perfect daughter, she had the perfect boyfriend, and she was captain of the cheerleading squad. After an incident at a party, she decides to put all of her effort into becoming socially isolated. Her self-destructive behavior has her parents on a constant suicide watch, and she is given one last chance to put forth effort at school or she won't graduate. Parker’s plan to isolate herself from others becomes complicated when a new transfer student, Jake Gardner, decides to befriend her despite her efforts to discourage his attempts.

All the stars! Cracked Up to Be is a re-release of Courtney Summers debut novel with a new look and foreword from the author. I fell in LOVE with her book Sadie and enjoyed This Is Not a Test so I was very excited to get the chance read her debut novel. One of the things I love about this author is her ability to write strong, often damaged, and unique main characters. In this novel we have Parker, a young girl who experiences a mysterious traumatic event which she feels responsible for. She determines that the way to atone for this is to remove herself from others, much to the dismay of her family and friends, by taking part in some pretty awful self-destructive behavior. Although the book covers some behaviors that may be disturbing to some readers, the main character's intentions are not always understood until later on. Her interactions with Jake are charming and often witty adding a touch of humor to some of the darker content. Some of the content may be a trigger for some readers and includes topics on: drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, and rape. I personally thought this book was fantastic and devoured it in an afternoon. A must read for 2020!

This was the first Courtney Summers book that I read and since then have gone on to read two of her other books. I'm so glad that she finally has gotten the recognition that she deserves. This is one of my all time favorite books and I'm so excited to read it again. This is such a good hard hitting contemporary. Not super long making it a very quick read.