"She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something."

I like the theory of this book, but it fell into too many tropes that I'm just sort of over. The straight-laced guy falling for the quirky, alt girl has been done to death, and the week it took for them to go from not wanting to share a bus seat to being fused at the soul was not really long enough for me to suspend my disbelief.

It had potential in the important issues it touches on, like abuse, racism, and isolation, but when I say "touches," I mean it only scratches the surface. The characters were too one-dimensional, and the way these issues were presented felt too stereotypical.

The saving grace of this book was that I'm a millennial and a sucker for '80s pop culture references. Other than that, I probably could have done without it. However, after some research, I've found a lot of Rowell's readers who have similar feelings on this one but still very much enjoy other works by her, so I do think I'll give her another chance.