~~Thank you to NetGalley and Charlesbridge for the ARC!~~

Middle grade contemporaries should not be, and feel, this long.

The pacing of the story dragged so much. It took about 250 pages for the prank to actually happen because so much page space was, in my opinion, wasted on repetitive thoughts and POVs from to many side characters. With the latter problem, I do understand why Caprara chose to include them, because they show what these kids and adults were going through and how Zella's actions directly impacted them, but I feel like this could have been accomplished if the POV had just stayed in Zella's head.

Other than that, the story as a whole was fine. Again, kids talking about social media, about likes, followers, and algorithms, will never not be weird to me (Especially if a certain ban goes through in the States and instantly ages any mentions and plots revolving around TikTok), but the story is still very grounded and relatable through themes of dementia, divorce, identity, and so on.

I can only hope the kids this book is intended for will enjoy it, because I'm disappointed I didn't.