I received a preview digital copy of this from Net Galley in exchange for a honest review.

Mare, an 18-year-old high school senior, has little life experience beyond going to school, volunteering at the local animal shelter and being known as the preacher's daughter.

One foolish drunken teenage night, she signs the titular pact with her best friend thinking nothing of it.

She later begins a relationship with an old friend who she develops feelings for, which she doesn't know how to handle at times. Her friend attempts to strike up an inappropriate relationship with an older man.

Conflicting beliefs with mother and father, secrets she has to hide and hard time she encounters with peers makes times hard for Mare. Is it all worth it for her to get what she wants?

The author does a good job of making the characters ones you care about, especially Mare.

Also, the author does give a far warning of topics covered in the book, giving a list of potential triggers prior to the beginning of the novel.

I came away from the book feeling really frustrated.
The first half of this book I enjoyed, it seemed to be setting up a story about religion and having a difference of beliefs and opinions between a child and their uber conservative parents. I feel like following this plot aspect could have been so much more powerful and impactful.
Instead so much drama, which I personally felt unnecessary, was thrown into the story. Very important things were being brought up: slut shaming, assault, dog fighting, but it all felt so cheapened because it felt like it was there for drama, for action and this is where my frustrations with the story lie.
I can't stop thinking about what this book could have been and what it was.

CWs: sexual assault, religious abuse, animal abuse

The Anti-Virginity Pact is just what it sounds like. A YA novel about a pair of high school girls who are tired of being outsiders and decide to make a pact that they'll both lose their virginities by the end of senior year. Of course, a copy of the pact gets leaked and Mare, the protagonist who signed, finds her social life turned upside down. And not in a good way. On top of that, her ultra religious parents will not be happy to find out their perfect little angel was planning on having pre-marital sex.

I got an advanced review copy of this from NetGalley and I couldn't be happier I did. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. I thought it would end up being something semi-preachy about waiting for the right boy or ignoring high school expectations. Instead, it was a really great story about needing to focus on yourself before others. I guess that's still a bit preachy in some way, but I think it was a much better done version of what a lot of YA novels try to do.

Religion plays a big backdrop to this and I was pleased how it wasn't completely demonized, just the way it's weaponized against some people. Mare's sister, for example, is still portrayed as religious, without being prejudiced because of it. And Mare's parents are mostly normal if maybe a bit strict through all of it, until near the end, when they're suddenly doing horrific things in the name of religion, which might feel sudden to some readers, but I think it perfectly shows how sometimes parents love the idea of their children and are nothing but loving and caring until the child does something to disrupt that idea. It's harsh, but it's reality for a lot of kids.

Finally, one of the things Mare says near the end really struck me. Talking to the novel's love interest Sam, she says that she has things about herself she needs to work on before anything else. I loved that reflection of hers, however brief. That's true for so many people, especially at that stage in life, yet we rarely see it in YA. Usually, its the new boy or best friend or adventure that fixes everything, not some long, painful self reflection and improvement. And as for Sam [ I'm glad they don't end up together at the end. He was a great guy and a sweet boyfriend, but it was for the best he leave her and it really drives home the message that Mare doesn't need a boy to make her senior year perfect. She just needs herself.

Overall, this definitely earned the five stars from me and I hope it helps future young readers find a little more clarity during that awkward phase in their lives. If nothing else, I'm sure it'll be an entertaining read for them!

I loved this book. I enjoyed the main character and how her anxiety was appropriately represented. I loved how much you see the main character grow into who she really is and grow more confident. I do wish that things weren't resolved so quickly at the end. Everything was resolved in like one chapter and I felt like it should've been flushed out and more detailed. Overall I give this book 4 out of 5 books.

PROS:
- I think the author has got a really nice author voice/writing style that is great for YA contemporary. As I was reading it, I was reminded of reading some of the stories I read as a teenager. Not in the sense of a similar spot, the voice and writing style. It was clear and concise and well done. Not flowery, which wouldn’t work for this genre anyway.
- The teenagers did feel like teenagers for the most part. Although, I do think the main characters didn’t seem 18 at all. To be they seemed to be 14 or 15. Besides the college application plot points, I just imagined them as younger.
- I enjoyed the pacing in the first half of the book. I like getting acquainted with the MC and her family, friends and life.
- Sam was my favorite character. He wasn’t super unique or interesting, but he seemed like an average nice guy and seemed like a normal, believable teenager.
- The mom was the most well rounded adult. She clearly had her strong beliefs, but that was not all there was to her. She had interests and a personality outside of that.
- Again, SPOILER, but I really like that Meredith and Sam did not end up together. I hate when YA romances act like everyone will stay with their high school crush for the rest of their lives so that was a nice change and showed the growth/maturity of Meredith.
- Mere and Johanna’s friendship was believable. They had chemistry and I could tell they were good friends and had a history beyond what was written on the page.

CONS:
- The parents in the story, particularly the Meredith’s and Sam’s fathers, were like caricatures. They were just religious bigots and didn’t seem to have much depth to them besides being religious. Although we got a sliver of something more with the alcoholic angle, it wasn’t resolved in the end so I do think it could’ve been taken out altogether. Also, the tension in Sam and his dad’s relationship is the ever-so-common “you’re giving up your dream, son” “no dad, I’m giving up YOURS” which is a tad overdone. Like his father got upset that Sam was even writing for fun/on the side and even if he had his own idea about what his son should do, I can’t see him being upset over a hobby.
- The blonde mean girl was kind of one-dimensional.
- The dog fight subplot was really unnecessary. Obviously every author has a message they want to get across in their work, and I’m sure animal abuse was one of them. However, it seemed like just that, trying to add a message that had no bearing on the story. If you took out this subplot nothing would’ve changed in the story.
- The response of the school to the pact was a bit far fetched. Of course you need to ramp up the drama some in a work of fiction but high schoolers really don’t care that much about each other’s sex lives. And even if they did, I don’t think they’d resort to doing what the band of mean girls did to Mere.
- Speaking of the pact, I expected it to be more present/important in the story. Until the pact was revealed to everyone, it wasn’t mentioned that much. Which brings me to a point about the synopsis of the book. This was essentially a YA contemporary romance, which isn’t to take away anything at all. I think there are misconceptions that all YA contemporary romances have to be light and fluffy and I don’t think that’s the case. Even with the bullying and sexual assault plots here it still overall was a romance and a coming-of-age(-ish) story of a girl learning to branch out from her family. The synopsis I think describes it as a darker story than it actually is.
- Most of the religious people were shown as crazy. Characters either seemed to be an atheist or bigots, no in-between.
- The first (only?) black person in the story is introduced by having “the darkest” “most beautiful” skin. Eh.

All in all, I’d still recommend this book to people who are fans of YA contemporaries/romances. I’m quite a critical reader, so perhaps some of my gripes with the book won’t bother other readers. I think if the synopsis more accurately (in my opinion) described the book, my expectations would've been different and I'd rate it higher. Still, not a bad read. This is the author’s debut and as I mentioned, she seems to have a writing style that I can see flourishing well in this genre. I look forward to her next release.

Goodreads Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3297583700

I feel this book has somewhat deceived me because of its false advertisement. Yes, there was a pact, yes it got out and yes Meredith handled consequences and is afraid to break Sam’s heart over this pettiness. But I feel like the story didn’t really focus on the anti-virginity pact. It got me blindsided and was offered instead a story that’s irrelevant to what the book promises.

If you are a devoted-Christian, I suggest steering clear of this book. This might greatly affect your religious belief but not to the point that it suggests you forget your faith and drop everything else. There are just some trigger warnings that may question your faith.

I don’t like how dragging the story was at first, then it comes to the middle all problems come crashing Meredith, and the answer to all those problems is just to press charges:

- The parents who tried to force her to do faith camp
- The attempted rape
- The dog fight

There's no resolution also to the following topics discussed:
- Ashley’s/the whole school bullying
- Johanna’s taboo with their professor

I guess the only shocking revelation is that the attacker is Ashley’s brother which proves that their family is dysfunctional. One rapist and one bully.

Sam is amazing. Johanna is blind about forbidden love. Meredith is annoying with her “I—“ “Uhh” those typical protagonist who can't speak up.

And she doesn’t get the boy. So that’s the ending.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I really did enjoy this book. The one thing I feel really didn't need to be in the story, was the dog fight, but I'm glad it had a good outcome. That's just my personal opinion. I loved the characters, except for Mare's parents and had quite a few feelings while reading. I was happy and mad. This book shows just how teenage life can be and just how mean girls can be, and how easy it is to get everyone else to fall into that meanness. The whole rape ordeal feels too close to home for me, but I'm glad Katie allowed Mare to have enough brains and backbone to stand up for herself and go to the cops. Maybe that part will help others. I'm not happy with the way things ended. I would have liked to see Sam and Mare stay in a relationship. Maybe in the next book?

3.75 stars

I have no clue how to review The Anti-Virginity Pact. There was a lot of good and a lot of bad but purely on enjoyment, I have to rank it higher. I think that if one doesn't overanalyse this, they will find it a pleasurable read, but when you stop and think about things, you'll realise there are somethings very wrong with it.

Some trigger warning that I must give for this book are sexual assault, bullying, animal abuse, and problems due to religion. All parts play a fairly large part in this novel, so if any of those trigger you, don't read this.

In the book, we follow Meredith Beaumont as she enters a pact with her best-friend Johanna that they plan on losing their virginities before the end of senior year. Little did they know, Mare especially, that their senior year will be filled with much much more than just studying in libraries. As they try to fulfil the pact other problems start to arise... how long it is before things get out of hand, how long before Mare's parents?

For this rating I am going purely off of my personal enjoyment. The book hooks you right in the beginning. As you go through the story you are enthralled by a lot of what is going on, but you very much stay for the story, not anything deeper. The character work isn't great. Ashley, one of the "villains" (but not really), is out to get Mare and Jo just because she is the "mean girl". There is even a rip off of the Plastics from Mean Girls, except they are called the Pretty Committee. If I was reading this critically, as I usually do, major no-no points for all of this. The prose was mediocre. Sometimes dialogues cut off in weird places, but you get used to it and overlook it pretty fast. There is a weird teacher-student kinda-romance going on for half the book, which is very awkward because Mare tells the student that it is wrong and then the student turns on Mare. The pact kinda stops mattering for a third of the book at some point, but this is fine. The other areas of the novel are enjoyable as well.

I do think that a large part of this novel does a wonderful job of turning your attention to animal abuse and sexual/religious assault. I think that this was all done in a way that no one will get offended by reading the book.

All in all, The Anti-Virginity Pact will be a quick and fun read for many, if you look past some of the more troubling aspects.

2.75/5

Picking up this book felt like watching a friend get up on stage and perform a talent for the first time. I wanted to fall in love with this book and for it to be a page-turner but it fell flat for me. Katie Wismer definitely held her own with The Anti-Virginity Pact but there are elements of her craft to work out before she becomes the excellent YA author she has the potential to be.

I follow Katie’s YouTube channel and watch her videos here and there. When she announced TAVP, the plot drew me in. Meredith Beaumont is the daughter of the star preacher in her hometown. For the sake of her family and her sanity she agrees to dress up every Sunday and sit in the front pew but her family doesn’t know that she spends her free-time reading atheist forums and signing anti-virginity pacts with her best friend Johanna. She intends to keep it this way until a mean girl spreads her signed copy of the pact throughout the school, potentially ruining her relationship with her family and her new boyfriend.

Katie’s stated in her videos that she sometimes doesn’t know what’s going to happen in a story until it happens. At certain points in this story, I can see that showing through. There are unexplained time gaps between events, plot points are mentioned but not brought up again until much later, or there’s dissonance between what was said before and what actually happens. The end happens quickly while the first 100 pages or so are slowly paced. Jo and Mare sign the pact within the first few pages and it doesn’t become the main plot point again until the halfway point of the book. It feels like there wasn’t a clear outline established which confused me as a reader and created an incohesive story.

Meredith's internal dialogue was distracting to me. It came off as being omniscient while un-knowledgeable at the same time. Often, Meredith had monologues about social issues that felt overdone and preachy (ironic) and contrasted with her inexperience and lack of confidence in other areas of the book. It resulted in different controversial topics being glanced upon but not talked about in detail. It was trying to tackle too much at the same time.

I felt like there was a real opportunity to establish characters via dialogue and interaction with Meredith but we didn’t get much of that. Instead, there were heavy-handed descriptions and a reliance on Meredith’s internal narrative to establish the world. Inter-character dialogue feels like a throwaway at some points. Meredith’s parents could’ve been fleshed out so much more as bible thumpers through their interactions with other people but we don’t see it outside of the health class debacle. Her parents’ actions towards the end feel so sudden because there wasn’t anything leading up to it. Maybe it’s just my personal experience with Christianity but there was so much that could’ve been established about her parents’ relationships with other characters. Her sister and Sam don’t feel like outstanding characters in the story either.

Lastly, there are plot points and character quirks that feel randomly inserted in. Characters speak French at her family, Meredith says "mon dieu" several times throughout the book but we never get an explanation as to why other than that her mom is French? It just doesn’t seem like a plausible reason for it to be ingrained in her interactions. I would’ve loved Meredith to be a major French foodie or in love with her mom’s culture to explain this. There are other scenes that feel lifted from a CW TV show. For spoilers sake I won’t get into them but, they felt unrealistic and plot points of convenience.

Like I said before, the potential for a great writer is there. I loved the plot for the book and there are moments when Katie’s writing shines and I can see elements being carefully crafted, especially towards the end. I wish the whole book was written like that and there was room to let the plot breathe a little bit. I would love to see what Katie could do in her next novel or a couple of years from now.

I don't even know.
I love Katie's writing style....
But there was so much about this that didn't flow well with me. I didn't really enjoy any of the characters, they read younger than what they were supposed to be.
Also the use of a certain derivative slur for lesbians not one but like 5 times, and the dog fighting plot, AND the student religiously trying to have sex with her teacher...It just didn't flow for me.
I will definitely check out Katie's poetry work, and won't hesitate to check out any other novel she works on, buy this one just wasn't for me.

Hey, Guyz! It is review time! Special thanks go to NetGalley, Xpresso Book Tours, and Katie Wismer for allowing bloggers and reviewers to get their hands on an advanced reader copy!

Without further ado here is my review:

First of all, I have to address the trigger warning! Thank you! I am fairly certain this is the first YA novel I have ever read that has a trigger warning page. The trigger warning is for bullying, religion, sexual assault, animal abuse, anxiety, and trauma.

I know my rating is a little different than some other ratings are. However, I connected with both Meredith Beaumont, the main character, and her best friend, Johanna Palmer on many different aspects. Mare has anxiety, and Jo is her confident counterpart. They complete each other so perfectly. Mare and Jo are a tad childish in their initial pact making, but because of that pact they realized an utter truth: they did not need a boy or anyone besides themselves to make the best of high school and their life.

Rest of the review at: Z's Readz and Other Needz!
https://zsreadzandotherneedz.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-anti-virginity-pact-arc-review.html

Thank you to net galley for sending me a copy of this book for review! I liked this book I just felt as if the characters were a little too immature for my liking. It didn’t feel like they were trying to lose their virginity when they still called their dad daddy.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I really enjoyed up until about 3/4 of the way through. Unlike other reviewers, I did not find the main character all that immature or unlikable. I enjoyed reading about her family dynamic - an atheist living with super religious parents - and was entertained by the plot. I also LOVED that she volunteered at an animal shelter. However, the dog-fighting storyline is where this book lost me. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and it was kind of horrifying to read. I work in animal rescue and have seen enough of this stuff with my own eyes; I’d just as soon not read about it. I’ll be honest, I skimmed the last few chapters because I was so panicked that the author was going to kill off Squirt.

This book had a strong start, but couldn’t, in the end, decide quite what it wanted to be or to be about. The writing was strong, which is why I’m still giving the book 3 stars.

Overall, I'm very impressed with Katie's writing abilities! It's always weird, going into a book written by someone you follow online-- I never know what the quality of the work is going to be. But I can see Katie's hard work and innate talent in this book, and that's such a good thing.

There's much I liked about this book, though there are some flaws that stood out to me. For one, the "main plot" of the book (the leaking of the anti-virginity pact) doesn't happen until after the 50% mark, which made it feel like I'd been spoiled before I even started reading, since it was in the synopsis.

The characters were well done, and I appreciated that every character seemed to have their own life outside of Mare's. Some of the plot-lines seemed a little out of left field, but overall it was an enjoyable read.

This story was really interesting. I would NOT classify it as a romance, it should be a coming of age story instead. Mare was a great girl who was definitely going through a time of growth. There was soooo much going on in this story that by the end you really felt her turmoil because you were in the chaos with her. It was not overwhelming, which is surprising with everything that was happening. This really felt like an into book to an epic story though. I would like to go on a journey with Mare to college and really get to see her spread her wings. The author gets you invested in her story.

The Cons: Some of the plot lines were skimmed over, or wrapped up to quick. Maybe that was do to so many things happening, but there could have been more build up.

I saw this book on bookstagram and knew I wanted to read it. I absolutely loved it. It drew me in and I didn't want to take a break. Definitely did not disappoint!

I want to thank NetGalley and author Katie Wismer for providing me with an ARC of this novel.

I had such high, high hopes for this novel. I thought it was going to be dark and spooky, but I was wrong. I felt like the characters were more so middle school age than high school and beyond. That made it hard for me to take them seriously, and a lot of stupid decisions were made. The actual writing wasn’t bad, but the story line and characters were. Also, the dog fighting was completely unnecessary. You could have taken those parts out completely and the story wouldn’t have been affected at all. I wanted a raw and gritty read, and I got... Well, this. Sad. Disappointed. Major respect to the author, writing a book isn’t easy. But this one just wasn’t for me.

Thank you again to those named above for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

I received an advance readers copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Disclaimer: I have no hate or negative feelings towards this author. I requested the ARC from NetGalley to support the author. I watch her YouTube channel and love her vlogs.

This book follows 18-year-old Meredith Beaumont. She's the daughter of a preacher in a super religious family while struggling with her own beliefs with God. With a push from her best friend, Johanna, they make a pact to lose their virginities before they graduate and head off to college. Things start to look up when Meredith starts dating Sam and coming out of her shell, but when the pact gets out Meredith is no longer invisible. Words are whispered behind her back and guys are offering to complete her pact.

Starting with Meredith as the main character. We are in her head the whole book but for being 'invisible' people really like to bully her. Everything she does goes against someone who has crippling anxiety and has to take medicine to help with it. I didn't really connect with Meredith.

Johana. She is Meredith's best friend. She is supposed to be the complete opposite of Meredith. She has no filter just blurting everything that comes to mind. She decides that she's going to lose her v-card to a TEACHER. Meredith warns her that it's a bad idea (because it is) and what does Johana do? She ignores her. For a whole day. Then who has to apologize? Meredith. For not supporting her friend in her dumb decision (which is stupid). Then (because everyone saw it coming) it didn't end well because he's a TEACHER.

Sam. Poor ol' Sam. He gets dragged into this whole Meredith thing because she decides (with a couple of swift pushes) that he is who she is going to lose her v-card too. Sam just likes Meredith. He likes that she's easy to talk to and understands his dreams (unlike his father). You find out that he's father is a drunk and they fight over Sam's decision to pursue writing and journalism in college. But that's it. He doesn't get any kind of wrap up for his story. He finds out about that pact and then breaks it off with Meredith and then that's the end of Sam

Ashley. She's just a big old bitch. She gets somewhat of a redemption arc and a wrap up to her story instead of Sam. I didn't think she deserved it. She kidnapped Meredith and left her for dead because her boyfriend was trying to find other means of getting laid since she wasn't ready to lose her v-card to him. JUST BREAK UP WITH HIM

Moving on to the plot. I feel like there were a lot of things that were put out there and they just hung out there. This could've been a great message about religion and families with blind belief but it wasn't that. The whole book just made everything about religion seem evil. I didn't like that. Meredith tells her parents in the end that she believes in science and not God. So their response is to try and send her off to a boot camp of religion. Black vans show up with FBI like guys trying to haul her away. Far more dramatic than anything that would really happen. (then after making a whole thing about it, calling the police, making they sign something saying they won't try something like that again. Meredith MOVES BACK HOME. um, wat)

There's also a part where her dad sees a penis in her sister's textbook for Health. He decides to band together with other parents at their church to try and remove that from being taught in the class. No. Just have them be removed from school. That was also never wrapped up. You don't find out what happened with that.

Now let's talk about dogfighting. I don't think this plotline was needed at all. The author talks about trigger warnings for this book and animal abuse is one of them. This plotline could be removed from that book and pretty much nothing would be affected by it. Sam just wouldn't have had a reason to come back and talk to Meredith about the pact. I think this was just a way to make the fact that Meredith volunteers at an animal shelter more than just that. She volunteers at an animal shelter. (also, there are moments in the book where she refers to it as a job and her having to work. you don't get paid to volunteer.)

Now the pact. Meredith ignores all of Sam's calls and texts because she just assumes that he heard about the pact. She doesn't want to face him. Makes sense except for the fact that he goes to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SCHOOL than she does. Yes, there could be a chance for it to be passed by word of mouth but also not really.
You are also lead to believe by the synopsis that Meredith meets Sam after the pact comes out but she meets him like 7 percent of the way into the book and the pact doesn't come out until Chapter 15.

Ashley's brother is a rapist. She tries to stop Meredith from coming forward when he attacks Meredith at a party. He's done it to multiple girls. Ashely randomly decides to come forward to speak against him at the end of the book.

Meredith's sister may or may not be homosexual. It comes up after some girls decide to be terrible people and make things up (except it's true). It is only referred to as 'dyke' five times. That is the only way it is given a label in the book.

This review really got away from me.
Things that I've concluded from reading this book:
It doesn't have the same tone as what you get from reading the synopsis on Goodreads. I thought this book was going to be darker. All of the rigger warnings given by the Author are valid and in the book. I just don't think they are intense enough to be a trigger. Meredith's anxiety wasn't as intense as I thought it would be. The dog fight wasn't needed, I thought I was reading a different book when that plotline was wrapped up.

The only thing I really enjoy about this book was the writing (for the most part) and the small number of cute scenes between Meredith and Sam before everything goes downhill.

I had really high hopes for this book and maybe that was my first mistake. I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

I’m so.
Sad.

*currently considering changing my name and disappearing forever*

I wish I could praise this book and shout my love from the rooftops, but instead I find myself in the situation where I have to write a very difficult review. Some people say “you should try to write a book yourself, instead of hating on the work of other people more talented than you”, as if writing rant reviews is easy. I’m here to tell you, no it’s NOT easy. It’s not fun.
So. I didn’t like a single thing about this book, apart from the passable writing style. The rest was a literal mess.

From the start I knew something was off. I was very excited about this book, and I even changed my OWLs TBR to fit this book in as I wanted to read it immediately. However, from the first chapter I realized I wouldn’t like this book as much as I expected. The main character is a senior in high school, but the book would have worked better if she was actually 15 or 16. Not only the way she behaves is immature, but her monologues belong to a much younger girl. She makes a whole lot of poor decisions without thinking them through in a childlike way. Though this doesn’t mean that the occurrences she finds herself in are any different. Everything that happened made me more and more conscious of the fact that this book is like a very cheap teen movie written by someone who has no idea how teens really act, and mistakes them for slightly maturer children. The adult characters are not any better (her parents, for example. Or school staff. Where was the principal?). I guess it makes sense that the author started to write this book at the age of 14.

On top of the unrealistic plot, the book felt disjointed in its parts. The beginning was very slow, but after the halfway point everything happens at once. What happens in the second half, apart from the pact plot line, it’s just shoved there as there’s no space for it. I would have wanted the book to have focused more on the pact, instead of having the characters discuss about one societal problem for one chapter or two, and then toss it aside. To be completely honest, I really dislike when these issues are in a book but are not well explored. I don’t think that was the intention here, but it does look like they were thrown in for shock factor.

The most random of these plot lines was the dog fights one. It’s so inconsequential and inconsistent with the main plot that if you take it out you don’t miss anything.
There is also a student-teacher dynamic that maddened me. Meredith’s best friend Johanna is even more immature and stupid than her, and that’s saying something. Together they have countless arguments about how Johanna plans to have sex with their young teacher but Mare doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Johanna even stops talking to her because she’s not on board with it. But the worst is that after the thing backfires Mare says this:

“Jo, I know this sucks, but are you really going to let one guy—no matter who he may be—get to you like this? You are Johanna fucking Palmer. If he wasn’t into you—and I’m guessing it was more about being afraid of getting in trouble than not being attracted to you—then screw him. Not literally, obviously.”

I understand she’s being supportive of her friend in a bad moment but are you freaking serious? There’s a reason why student-teacher relationships are illegal. Thank god he was a conscientious person or it would have gone in another direction which I don’t even want to talk about right now. Read My Dark Vanessa.
On the other hand, I’m conflicted about the sexual assault plot line. It does make sense with the main plot line but the way it was handled... I don’t even know. A part of it is used as a plot twist and I’m not sure I’m on board with it.

Thinking about the synopsis makes me very angry as well. After reading it you go into the book and you expect something very different. I, for one, was expecting a raw and gritty novel, not a mix between a cute contemporary and a nonsense bully plot. The tone of the entire book doesn’t match with that plot at all. Plus, the synopsis and the TITLE talk clear, but the pact gets out at the 55% mark and I don’t know about you, but I’m super disappointed. I was promised something different. Chapter 15 is probably the only chapter that was similar to what I wanted from this book. If you want more proof, look at that synopsis and tell me it doesn’t look like Mare is going to meet the guy she’s going to be with AFTER the pact gets plastered all over school and she starts to get bullied.

I really like the author and I’m sad about not liking her book, but I seriously hope other people love it. I hope it’s just me.

Excellent read! Definitely wasn’t expecting something so well written! The story kept me hooked and I could barely put this down (alas I’m a mother so I did have to put it down a little) but wow!!!! Loved every minute of this