I do wish more books had this kind of ending, especially while I was growing up.
3 stars
Content warning Long review with potential spoilers.
I'm not overwhelmingly a fan of the romance genre, and this comes down to books and movies. I tend to only read it because I know, as a teacher, I need to be open to teaching and reading materials that I'm not always... interested in. But when I saw the premise, I figured this one would be more digestible to me.
And in some ways, it really was. One of the things that I noticed, too, as I found myself frustrated by the ending is that... I was frustrated by the ending, which is actually so perfect and something that we need more of. I'm saying this because I have always said my response to being in Audrey's position (someone cheating on me and then trying to get back with me) would be identical to hers, and yet? I found myself frustrated by it happening in this book, which just proves the point more.
I liked a lot of the structure and that the one Really Big Drama Queen was the girl that, stereotypically, is supposed to be the least drama: One of the Guys. Because you know, in reality, OotG girls generally are more drama. But it's not inherent because of who they are; it's because of the precarious position they feel they embody: the need to compete with another girl (or all the girls), the need to keep their hierarchy over all the women in another male-dominated space.
I also liked seeing a book talk about teenage female sexuality. It included a girl having a period, about being worried over your partner seeing you naked and hating it, about not knowing enough but also knowing too much about sex. It talked about sex positively and openly and without mincing words. That was probably one of the most refreshing aspects. Real Human Characters having Real Human Worries.
Note: My actual rating was docked .5 because I honestly cannot stand some of the writing and the awkward metaphors. Yes, I know that they're semi-relevant because of the topic of the book (films, romance, etc), but they kind of grated on my nerves after the first few chapters. But there were a few times that I kept stopping and trying to figure out how the metaphor was meant to function because they didn't... always work out.
Also, there were a few moments of the 'feminist discussion' that I kind of got... confused by? Like, there was a point where Audrey decides the zombie bride was angry about being labelled a feminist because she wasn't allowed to choose the label and... Really, from my life of being labelled things, being labelled a feminist has probably been the least insulting (even if the people labelling me that wanted to offend me); that happened a couple times in various areas, so it left me really perplexed with the rest of the novel that supported it. It was weird.
