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Unpopular Opinion Alert: Punk 57 is garbage. This is sexist, disturbing, problematic, and absolute, total garbage.

I really loved the idea behind this book - long time pen pals who secretly fell in love with each other through their writing, but don’t actually like each other in real life, which would eventually evolve into a hate-to-love romance. It sounded unique, cute, and interesting, and with the thousands of raving reviews, I couldn’t have been more excited to dive into this.
I also couldn’t have been more disappointed or disgusted.

Minor spoilers ahead:

I think that Penelope Douglas was aiming to write a story about complex, flawed characters with troubled pasts that they are able to overcome. Instead, she wrote about the most horribly unlikeable and terrible protagonists that I have ever come across. Neither one has a single redeeming quality.
Ryen is shallow, boring, and mean.
Misha is entitled, rude, demanding, sexist, and disgusting.

It didn’t make any sense for Ryen to be interested in any sort of relationship with Misha prior to knowing his true identity because he mistreated her in countless, terrible ways. Ryen’s obsession with licking Misha’s lip piercing seemed to be the only plausible reason that she pursued him.
To put it simply, Misha treated Ryen like trash. He stole things from her and blackmailed her, pointed scissors at her throat and threatened her, cut off a chunk of her hair, called her terrible names including c*nt and bitch, humiliated her, pushed her, broke into her house more than once, slut-shamed her, and insulted her intelligence. He was never called out by anybody in the story for his abusive behaviour. Rather, Ryen seemed to get off to him harassing and mistreating her.
Misha also broke into Ryen’s house because he wanted to lay next to her while she slept, without her knowledge or permission. When he waltzed into her bedroom and found her awake, she was not the least bit concerned about him breaking in. She rolled her eyes and laughed it off. How is this perceived to be normal behavior?!?!
Misha thought he is so much better than Ryen because she’s a mean cheerleader at school but he is a bully too!! His relationship with Ryen is so abusive but this was not recognized even one single time!!

The sex scenes were written in a very vulgar manner filled with disgusting language that was honestly SO disturbing to read.
Even worse than that was the fact that the sex was often not entirely consenual. There were multiple instances in which Ryen asked Misha to stop or not do something, and he basically said “screw it, I’m gonna do what I want�.
THIS IS WRONG AND UNHEALTHY - STOP NORMALIZING IT!!!!!
It is not uncommon for books in the new adult romance genre to glorify men that are abusive and disrespectful to their sexual partner because they are a “dominating alpha male�, but this is probably the worst example that I have ever come across. No, no, no, no NO!
Misha would insult and slut-shame Ryen while or right before they were making out or having sex. Here is just one example:
I lick my lips.
And he loses it.
He reaches down, grabs the backs of my thighs and hauls me up, and I wrap my arms and legs around him, letting out a small whimper. Yes.
I part my lips, running them over the lip ring and savoring the feel as he groans and digs his fingers into my thighs. I tighten my legs around him, needing to feel him.
“Bitch,� he whispers.
“L´Ç²õ±ð°ù.â€�
I was also deeply concerned by the fact that Misha seemed to use sex mainly as a method for him to gain possesion and dominance over Ryen. It gave the impression that he was just using her body to prove his ownership over her to other people. Ew.

I do not at all support Misha nicknaming Ryen “Rocks� because she was as dumb as a bag of rocks, but� well, he wasn’t exactly wrong.
The fact that many of the ideas behind Misha� tattoos were influenced by Ryen and she failed to notice was so dumb. Keep in mind that they had seen each other naked several times and not even once did she pay attention to any of his tattoos? I know she was pretty busy licking his lip piercing every five seconds, but the fact that most of his tattoos were inspired by her and her letters and she didn’t notice a single one is so ridiculous that it’s comical.

The actual plot of this novel was a bit of a train-wreck. There was so much absurd drama it was making my head spin! Between their insane relationship problems, Misha’s band, Ryen’s “friends�, the vandalism, Misha’s living and family situations, and the bullying at school, it was a hot mess. The author put so much emphasis on their disastrous whirlwind of a romance that everything else got muddled. The big “plot twist� was a little random but I still managed to figure it out very early on in the story. I'm not even going to bother getting into the mess that was the whole school vandalism plot because I don't even have the words to explain how awful all of that was.

Also, can we please stop calling this an enemies-to-lovers romance? This book is a disgrace to that wonderful trope. We need to call this novel out for what it is: an unhealthy, problematic relationship rooted in deceit.

It’s definitely time for me to remove any other Penelope Douglas novels from my TBR.