The problem with books this good is that they fuel my desire to write my own. But then when I try, I find after several pages that I’m really just rewriting the protagonist of the book into a different (read: worse) story.

I wouldn’t even call this post a review, because I’m not going to go into a lot of detail. And that’s mostly because I don’t want to give anything away at all ever, but it’s also because I’m still in the honeymoon phase (where you read a book for the first time and it’s so mind-blowingly great and the main character is creepishly relatable and it hits you in all the right emotional places and you can’t think about it critically for about a week or two afterwards because you’re just reeling from how in love you are).

However, I will present you with a succinct list of things I really loved about this book in order to coax you into reading it:

1. The main character of this book is a teenage female and she’s real enough to be flawed and emotional, but also fictional enough not to be too “teenage girl.” She’s kick-ass without being cliche. And I love her.
2. The dreamboat-love-interest-with-a-dark-past of this book is, indeed, a dreamboat. I love him, as well. However, we are not dealing with a Sarah Dessen novel here, people (no offense to the general fiction-reading population – I’ve read a good seven of those myself). The dreamboat and the protagonist are at enough of a distance that the dreamboat-ness is part of the protagonist’s distanced perception of him, and not necessarily because he is a perfect human being.
3. There is an evil mastermind.
4. There are a good two or three plot twists that made my jaw actually, physically drop. I am a cartoon of a person.
5. There is an underlying commentary about religion in its relation to a capitalist society.
6. There is a Mexi-American restaurant.

If those aren’t on your list of reasons to read a book, then you’re probably not living your life correctly.

The only thing about this book is that you have to order it from the publisher, Hot Key Books, in the UK. It’s not expensive and it actually arrives rather quickly. But if anyone wants to read my copy, I will happily loan it to you for the reason that it will make you a better person to have read it.