What readers say
this was… certainly an experience. i will never look at habanero peppers the same way again. dell is an absolute hot mess. every decision she made somehow managed to be worse than the last, and she gave me secondhand embarrassment for basically the entire book. i did appreciate the social commentary about how far people will go for attention, validation, money, and internet fame. that was easily the strongest part of the novel, and there were a few lines that really stuck with me. but unfortunately, i spent the entire book waiting for dell to learn literally ANYTHING. where was the remorse? where was the accountability? where was the redemption? she treats her mom horribly, puts the people around her through absolute hell, and never really feels like she grows in any meaningful way. by the end, she was just as insufferable as she was at the beginning. the writing itself wasn’t bad at all, especially for a debut. my biggest issue was that the story started to feel repetitive, with dell making the same kinds of reckless decisions over and over without much progression. if the goal was to see just how much a reader can dislike a main character while experiencing nonstop secondhand embarrassment… mission accomplished.