This review is probably going to contain some spoilers, but I’m not sure how to write it otherwise. I’m going to be completely honest and say that I almost stopped reading this book and marked it as “did not finish,” but I don’t like to do that with reviews, so I pushed through. And I’m glad I did, because, while I didn’t like the beginning, the book did get better.

So why did I not like the beginning? The characters were unlikeable, even Lemon, and the motivations and behaviors just did not make sense.

I like complicated and flawed characters, but everyone in this book (with the exception of Aunt Vee) was terrible at one point or another. Thankfully most of the characters improved, recognized their horribleness, or their motivations finally started making sense. But what kind of school knows about extreme cyber-bullying going on but claims they can do nothing about it and ultimately blames the victim? And don’t get me started on Lemon’s parents and how completely bizarre their behavior is.

Ok, because I’m all about characters, let’s take a look at the main people. I’m only going to talk about the 3 people I liked (aside from Aunt Vee) and who ultimately redeem themselves. The bullies don’t deserve a place in my review.

Lemon Lavender- essentially wants to be invisible because she feels like she’s not good enough to live up to her older sister’s perfect reputation and she hates her name and has been teased about it all her life. Wants to hide her developing relationship with Graham from the masses because she doesn’t want attention. When admitting to the relationship could easily put a stop to horrible rumors that start circulating about her, she instead is awful to Graham and refuses to have anything to do with him. Eventually, after things get really, really bad, Lemon starts to stand up for herself, realizes the bullies are unhappy jerks, and repairs the relationships she broke. She also stands up to her parents about their part in everything as well.

Graham- new kid in school, doesn’t understand how evil the bullies are, really cares about Lemon, tries to do the right thing, gets angry when Lemon shuts him out. But, instead of setting the record straight with the gossips, which again would have stopped things from escalating, he does nothing and unintentionally reinforces the rumors. Graham does eventually step up for Lemon, and he is the one who comes to her in the end to fix their relationship.

Izabel- Lemon’s BFF who starts off super supportive, then starts hanging out with some new friends in the middle of when things are the toughest for Lemon and takes their side over Lemon’s. Luckily, she’s only a jerk for a short time and gets her act together pretty quickly.

This book mad me angry at times, but ultimately did make me really feel for Lemon and how isolated she became. While her initial motivations didn’t make sense to me, I did understand the motivations behind her later actions.

I would have rated the beginning of the book around a 2, but the ending was more of a 4, so I split the difference and gave this one 3 stars.

Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book through Net Galley on behalf of the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.