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Initially I was going to give this book 3⭐️, but after thinking through it I will stick to 2⭐️.

I wish this book left me with the feeling of wanting to discuss about it with other people, but it makes me nauseous how such a sensitive topic can be played with in this way. Definitely check TW and if you have suffered from any of those, I would never recommend you to read this book at all.

At the beginning I thought it was going to be a lighthearted story about how an online opinion can crush your entire integrity, both personally and professionally, and while I was reading I couldn't see the difference between what happens to an influencer and what happens to a non-famous person. The only thing differenciating them was the amount of followers she was losing chapter by chapter (heartbreaking, of course).

But when THE topic is touched on, and you get to see more details about what *supposedly* happened and how the different characters view that night, that's when I began to feel sick. As a reader you constantly go back and forth between believing Sam's view of the story or believing Lisa's, and even though I know this book is fiction, I fear this is such a sensitive topic for many people to be playing with it. You believe Sam? Then you're not believing the victim. You believe Lisa? Then you're getting sick at the manipulation and extorsion Sam is trying to perform in order to make her admit she lied.

If you believe the storyline that Sam tells about her life, her parents, her previous trauma and even her own SA situation, then you can't understand why Lisa would lie, and you, again, don't believe the victim.
But at the same time you start thinking that Sam might have a psychological disorder that makes her lie about everything in her life to create this online persona she can profit from, and this also invalidates her own SA story, cause you might start thinking she made up that story as well.

Is it really necessary, in the society we live in where victims are constantly being questioned by everyone, to make the reader question its own morals all the time? And not in an educational way (cause you don't know at the end what was the truth so you cannot see if your vibes were right or wrong), but in such an uncomfortable way that it can be very triggering to victims who have gone through the same and have had a hard time being believed in.

I might give another try to the author but I think this book was something over the top.

PS: the ultimate cringe I got all the time at Sam's behaviour and way of speaking...😵‍�� calling Lisa her "mouse" (when they are clearly not friends), being a bitch to her old high-school mates (even saying "buh-bye"??? girl you're 40...) and wanting to be the victim and center of attention all the time... I just could not connect to her or her story at all and it pissed me off so much.