Things I Liked About This Book
1. cute friendships
2. teenagers working together
3. very very cute pairing
4. my two new favorite sons, in order of preference, Cooper Clay (my all American boy I love him soso much so cute so sweet so basically perfect) and Nate Macauley
5. fantastic character development

Things I Didn't Like/Found Strange
1. this is the reason I didn't give it five stars:

Spoiler

the way Cooper's whole "sexuality arc" was handled, by the police in the story and by McManus when she wrote it. As others have addressed, I see why it would be a big deal to his dad but it was handled very very poorly by the police, the media, and his classmates. The way he was outed was literally unconstitutional and it seemed like the only one who really addressed that was Eli in passing and Mikhail Powers. The only non-bad thing about it was Luis and how the rest of the main characters (especially Nate) reacted (or, non-reacted, I guess) to it. It was very hard to read this bit, and not just in the "oh this poor kid way" but because I was so mad at the way it was being handled.

2. kinda tying in to the point above but not really: all of these kids are underage, it seemed very very surprising and strange to me, that the names of 4 minors, who were just suspects for their proximity when the whole media stuff started happening, were shared with the public. I'm pretty sure it's illegal (correct me if I'm wrong) to print a minor's age and picture in relation to an ongoing case in which they have not been convicted of anything without, at least, their parents' permission.
3. and this is one is more silly: Addy's constant and annoying reminder that she has good hair! Like, I got it the first time, thanks.

Spoiler

I guess it was meant to convey how much she loved her hair and how big a part of her identity it was and how transformative it was that she cut it off and blah blah but I feel like there could have been a better way to show us this that wasn't "at least my hair looks good" or "my hair always looks good" or "everyone loooves my hair" or "wow! my hair looks good today, oh, right like always".

Please don't let those negatives make you not read this book. I know I wrote a lot more for the negatives than I did for the positives but that's just because the majority of the book is good. It's not just suspenseful in the whodunit way, but also in the "I wanna see what happens to these kids and how they deal with this awful thing that's happening" way.

One last thing, everyone's saying they guessed it, and maybe it's cause I don't really read any mysteries, but I did not guess it until right before it was said. I actually thought about it one or two times but quickly dismissed it and forgot about it until it was revealed who the killer was.