3.0

It is refreshing reading a young adult novel that doesn't focus on or needs to contain a romantic relationship. This book was a deep exploration of friendships old and new, and not only the difficulties of navigating and maintaining a friendship triad but the insecurities that come along with that. The book is slowly paced, but I think that was necessary in order to develop to flesh out the characters, the frienship. and the dynamic of the characters relationships. For the most part, Barnard does a great job in authoring this exploration.

The complexities of the friendship and friend experience is made that more difficult as one of these friends is struggling with her mental health as a result of some fairly traumatizing experiences. As someone with a Masters Degree in Psych, I will always gravitate towards these types of deep character studies that have a focus on mental illness. Mostly because I like to see how they are handled. While I think the author did a brilliant job fleshing out the main character Caddy there was something done in this book that I am generally not a fan of. That is when the mentally ill character (in this case Suzanne) is characterized so heavily by her mental illness that they become nothing but the illness. I have known and been friends with a Suzanne or two in my lifetime, and while those characters sometimes walk the line between being both exhilarating to be around and exhausting (which Barnard does a great job of showing), they are also more than just the highs and often extremely aggressive lows that the character Suzanne was often reduced to in this novel. For that reason, this book fell a wee bit flat for me.