Shine

Two stars seems harsh, but the Goodreads definition of 2 stars is “It was OK,” which is exactly how I would describe this book. I wanted to like it. Lauren Myracle seems very nice and she's very passionate about this book. It deals with important topics like hate crimes and sexual assault and meth. I don't like hate crimes or sexual assault or meth either, Lauren!! But this just seemed clunky to me, I suppose. The characters seemed like... elaborately cookie cutter'd? Like she knew she shouldn't have 2-dimensional characters so she deliberately gave each character a secret and/or flaw? And for me, none of it flowed together very well. But clearly a lot of teens are connecting with this book and I think where Shine succeeds the most is in capturing small town Southern life, which isn't where a ton of YA books are set these days.