Wow, this novel took me for a ride! At first I thought it was going to be just another teenage novel, pregnancy, friend drama and underage drinking, but it was sooo much more than that.
Ingrid's journey of self discovery is inspiring and so real. Gilmore has created characters that don't seem ficticious at all, they seem as real as my friends and family. This is Aussie writing at its best, as an Australian myself, I  loved every aspect of this novel. The writing is fluid and allows the reader time to digest the big things in the scene while still giving enough interesting information for the book to continue without rambling.
A great summer read!

I really wish I would have loved this book, I really do. I wanted to. It sounded like a fun, amusing enough, and quick YA read to pass some time. And yet, in all honesty, I only pushed to finish reading it because it’s a galley and I felt kinda obligated to. I wanted to put it on my ‘did not finish’ shelf and move on before I even hit the halfway mark, so this wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be and I’m… disappointed, I suppose. 

[ There’s spoilers here and there throughout after this. They’re vague so I’m not marking them as spoilers, but I figured I would warn ahead of time. ]

For starters, I couldn’t connect to Ingrid for a couple of different reasons—which really ruined this for me as a reader. I, personally, like to connect to the main characters (especially the narrator) and feel like this story is mine rather than someone is just telling me the story, and I didn’t get that with this book. Because I couldn’t connect to Ingrid, I couldn’t relate nor empathize with a lot of her inner conflict and turmoil. And while I understand and comprehend that Ingrid has done a lot of things to avoid rejection and standing out because she’s not comfortable with herself, I spent a lot of time detached from her and her angst. In fact, I kind of didn’t even like her. I didn’t feel any of this fear or regret or confusion or sadness; I only knew Ingrid was feeling because I was told.

I also spent a lot of time cringing back from Ingrid’s narrative. While I appreciated the overall unapologetic bluntness, there were too many times where it stopped being ‘blunt’ and just simply started being rude and/or borderline offensive. The gracelessness of these moments would ruin the flow of the book and made it hard for me to focus. It definitely did not help Ingrid’s case with me.

Another reason I felt disconnected from everyone was because I didn’t feel like Gilmore had a grasp on their own characters, for about two reasons. 

1.	The whole “new hair, who dis” attitude. Based on the summary alone, I had expected Ingrid’s decision to dye her hair pink to be a big deal, like this spur-of-the-moment act of rebellion that held a lot of weight. Instead, it happened as if Gilmore thought of it mid-paragraph of chapter two, threw it in there randomly, then revolved things about it. I understood that Ingrid dying her hair pink was a big deal in of itself because of the things she and others said after, but the decision to do so should have been treated like one as well. I could have easily glossed over the point she dyed her hair actually and then I would have assumed the book started with her already having pink hair rather than making the radical choice within the actual content. 
2.	Certain characters (mostly Ingrid and Amber really) would do things that made no sense whatsoever to me. I’m not sure if this is because I didn’t get to know them before they did this drastic things or if it was because Gilmore didn’t really know where they were going with them, but too many times, I was put off from a lot of things because there was no real development to anything. It felt extremely out of character and sudden because Gilmore built Amber up one way, then delivered a completely different thing out of left field. I feel like if Ingrid was that aware of Amber’s dramatic and manipulative tendencies, it would have come up and been thought on far before that Thing happened at the wedding. Mentioning that someone has a tendency to be dramatic doesn’t immediately let me know that they’re also manipulative as the two aren’t interchangeable nor synonymous. 

I also don’t think the pacing and overall writing helped any causes here. Because as mean as it sounds, it read like a poorly written fanfic. On Wattpad.

Going back to the ‘it felt as if Gilmore didn’t know their own characters’ thing, it extends out to the whole book. It honestly felt like Gilmore wasn’t sure what they were doing the entire time—as if there was an overall plot idea (Ingrid being gay and coming to terms with it, and Summer being pregnant), and then everything after that was free game. As if it was an author winging it and seeing where they ended up on a writing site rather than an actual well thought out book. I felt like I was reading the rough draft of a concept rather than the actual ‘going to be published’ version because I highly doubt 98% of the book that made me feel this way can be dismissed as “well it’s an ARC” because it’s going to be published officially very shortly.

The writing itself lacked a lot of emotional depth, especially in the times that it needed it the most. 

The other things that bothered me weren’t necessarily technique related as they were tropes and things I could have done without entirely.

One being the lack of parents. They’re mentioned here and there, but every single interaction that involved parents of any type was summed up in the tl;dr fashion. Every. Single. Interaction. I can’t recall a single moment where a parent’s actual words were part of a dialogue scene at all. These kids are seventeen, in high school, going through some serious crap, and living at home and yet it was as if their parents just didn’t exist. I find it hard to believe that in all the months this book spanned over, there wasn’t at least one interaction worth writing about—whether it was when Jackson moved in with Ingrid, RMIT’s rejection letter, Ingrid coming out or moving out, whatever. There were so many times that a parent should have been involved and it was like they were only mentioned because Gilmore felt obligated to since they were still living at home.

I also didn’t appreciate how the sexualization and fetishization of lesbians was normalized in all the Cloud Nine scenes. The first time Ingrid goes to the club, there is a casual mention of men palming themselves in the middle of a lesbian club. This should have been inappropriate and treated as wrong, rather than like “oh haha, men, you know, they love them some girl on girl action.” The fact that Leon and Jackson both were in there made me uncomfortable. Because really, no man should be in a lesbian club unless they themselves have no attraction to women. Gay clubs don’t exist to fuel their perverted lesbian fantasy and it shouldn’t be normalized seeing as most gay girls hate this. And honestly, with the lack of actual gay representation in the club scenes, Gilmore was better off making it just a club. A regular club rather than a supposedly “gay” one.

And this isn’t just with this book, but it was that scene with Kat in the coffee shop where Ingrid asked if she was gay that I realized This Thing. I don’t know why, but YA authors rarely know what the word ‘bisexual’ means and/or use it. If a character doesn’t fall within the gay or straight side of the spectrum, it’s immediately “I do what I want”, “I’m experimenting”, “I like girls/boys too from time to time”, etc. and this is fine, but for once. Just once, I would like for a character to answer the “Are you gay?” question with, “Bi actually.” and that be that.

Putting aside the problems I had with this book, there were two good points for me.

I liked how Summer and Jackson’s arc was handled with the whole pregnancy thing. Rather than being shunned and shamed for making a mistake (albeit a life changing one), people were accepting of Summer’s choice to keep the baby. I love how Summer embraced her path in life with a warm heart and I did love how Jackson grew up rather than turned into the typical teenager that ran away. Summer and Jackson were happy together by the end.

And the whole thing with Kat. Although I think the change of heart could have been handled better on Ingrid’s end as it sorta felt like she was scurrying back to Kat because Amber didn’t go as planned, I did like that it went the other way. I was anticipating Ingrid to end up with Amber what with her attraction to her and how their relationship was developing as Ingrid was coming into her own, but Kat was definitely a better choice. 

All in all, despite these two good points, I didn’t… like this book. I hate that I didn’t and I feel kind of guilty about it honestly. I think it had great potential to be an entertaining and motivational book, but too many necessary components were missing and it lacked a much needed emotional depth to really be something.