This may be a bad way to approach a review...but I was kinda torn reading it. I will start off by saying that I am considering giving the second book a try. Not having a big experience with bully romance, this was surprisingly not an issue for me while reading. My main issue was how slowly the story moved. At first it's so quick, but then later it felt like moving through molasses. I was also hugely questioning Rory's mental space and ability to act like everything was normal...I know she was trying to survive, but she barely seemed to have any sadness and it just seemed like a weird disconnect from the tragedy that occurred (the nightmares, crying herself to sleep, and the one class with fears all made sense, it just didn't seem consistent). There wasn't really any romance in this book which I wasn't expecting, but did make me wonder about other books in the series. Any romance was very "wham, bam, thank you ma'am". Last point: did anyone else think there were too many knock-off feeling similarities to Harry Potter? I didn't start to clue into the end, but it did make the 'magic' and creativity feel way less special once I noticed.