Somewhere between 2.5 and 3 stars. I loved The Summer Prince but this one just did NOT work for me. Bird as a main character was easy to relate to but the plot was kind of all over the place. It moved linearly but I constantly felt like there was missing information (and not referring to the actual missing information that was part of the plotline) or we were spending too much time hung up on daily high school interactions. Also the big reveal at the end was not that surprising. The beginning also didn't work well for me, being dropped into the middle of the action and having to figure out characters and relationships on the fly wasn't enjoyable. After all the talk of conspiracy throughout the book (which I did enjoy) the big secret wasn't very revelatory. I did like the commentary on race and class, and the difficulties Bird had at her wealthy private school as a person of color. I guess if you REALLY feel a burning desire to read this novel there's no reason not to, but I came away disappointed after loving Johnson's previous book so much.

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