does sunny dae (because yes, that's his name) realize that you can be both a nerd and a member of a rock band???? that those two aren't mutually exclusive???? that people aren't stereotypes???? that people have, idk, actual multitudes????

case in point, gunner who was both a jock and a nerd!!!

i wish i could say that sunny realized this by the end of the book, but i'm not so sure.

i'm also not even sure he got what he deserved, tbh. in the end his friends, cirrus, and his family all forgive him, and he faces no repercussions whatsoever, despite being a selfish dumbass who lied to everyone and manipulated his friends.

i wanted a quick, fun YA story, and this book did deliver on that sometimes. most of the time, though, this book was literally excruciating for me to read. i was cringing so hard at the romance. sunny literally fell in love with cirrus on the spot. and as for cirrus--let's just say i think men should be legally banned from writing female characters. cirrus was such a MPDG caricature, and she was only there to serve sunny's arc. literally there is no other point to her character. and what other female characters do we have? popular girl archetype artemis (everyone has Quirky Names), sunny's workaholic mom, and yeah... that's it.

i wish this book was a netflix movie i could hate-watch instead. maybe the cliche-ness of it all would have been fun (or at least, idk, tolerable) to see on screen. as a book, though, i was just begging myself to read it as fast as possible. this barely deserves 2 stars from me.