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somelesbianwriter's review
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
well-written, lovable MCs, adorable relationships, and serious, important topics too? this book nailed it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Cultural appropriation, Racism, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Alcohol and Classism
cortanasreadingnook's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I thought Regina George was mean, but nothing seriously could have prepared me for Everyone’s Thinking It. This is a richly diverse book, with wonderfully done queer rep, but most importantly, it loudly tackles classism, racism, bullying, and blackfishing. Personally, I liked this book because this is truly Mean Girls set in a boarding school with lots of romance, drama, and betrayal. The switching of the POVs between cousins Kitan and Iyanu really told this story well. I only had trouble with the pacing because it didn’t really pick up towards the end but were no dull moments, especially because not one character was left out, had their own personalities to show for, and the story itself had a pretty great conclusion.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Racism, Classism, Toxic friendship, Biphobia, Cultural appropriation, and Mental illness
chris_reads's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Racism, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Bullying, Classism, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Homophobia and Biphobia
kendal_reads's review
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Mental illness, Biphobia, Racism, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Panic attacks/disorders, Bullying, and Classism
opalmars's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
Well. That was disappointing. 😕
The premise of this book is really intriguing. 2 cousins go to a fancy school and one day a bunch of secrets about some of the most popular students come out, and everyone blames one of the cousins, so she has to find out who exposed those secrets so she can clear her name. That sounds so cool!
Unfortunately, though, the execution was really off. First of all, it took 50 pages for anything interesting to finally happen, which made the start of this book quite boring. But I was like “You know what? That might’ve been a slow start but NOW things are FINALLY going to get interesting!”. And uh….. Yeah. That didn’t happen. 🫥
For starters, most of the secrets were quite boring. Sure, some were scandalous (like “this person cheated” and whatnot). But there was literally a secret that was “You don’t have what it takes and everyone knows it.”????? And another one implying that a guy was faking being gay for attention… as if anyone would ever want *hate crime* type of attention 🥴 (this one ended up being about something else, but we only find out at the very end ). Idk man… I just thought these secrets were going to be super dramatic and scandalous, but they were boring. Didn’t gag me at all.
Then everyone blames Iyanu because the secrets were written on the pictures she’d taken, which is just completely absurd. It makes no sense to me that people would think it’s Iyanu. Why would she use HER OWN photos? That would obviously incriminate her! Also, how could she even know all of those secrets when she didn’t even talk to those people? It’s clear from the start that Iyanu’s photos were just stolen and used for this little exposé. And yet nobody managed to put 2 and 2 together and realize she didn’t do it? 🤨🙄
Anyways. Iyanu starts investigating so she can clear her name (and also so she can find another thing the real culprit stole from her). I thought we’d get a lot of sleuthing, eavesdropping, bluffing and spying in this section of the book, but we barely got anything. There were only like 4 or 5 (short) investigative moments, spread through hundreds of pages, which made a lot of this book feel like filler. Additionally, Iyanu started counting out and teaming up with a bunch of people, so by the halfway point there were only like 3 possible suspects, so even when we got the reveal I wasn’t gagged, because like… there were no other options? Also, it was very obvious from the beginning who the “bad guy” was going to be (I literally wrote in my notes this person was a “very obvious villain” ON PAGE 6!!! 💀💀💀). I didn’t fully guess their plan, so that was a bit interesting to learn in the end, but still. If the obvious villain from basically page 1 ends up being the ACTUAL villain, that makes the mystery quite underwhelming. 😕
So, overall, the mystery in this mystery book was very boring to me: the setup wasn’t that dramatic, the investigation was extremely slow-paced and lackluster (it could’ve all been done in 50 pages max, but instead it was spread through hundreds), and the villain was obvious from the beginning.
Now, you might’ve noticed that I have yet to mention the other MC, Kitan. Well, that’s because she’s irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong: she’s a sweet girl! It’s just that she had no reason to be taking up half of this story. The 1st time I was interested in her POV was at 46% (she found a lost object, and I thought something exciting was finally gonna come from Kitan’s POV! I was wrong. 🫥 This only came back up again at the very end, and wasn’t that thrilling anyways). Her POVs only existed to give the readers a glimpse of other characters, particularly the popular (racist) girl. I genuinely can’t think of any other reason for Kitan’s POVs to even exist; she doesn’t talk to Iyanu until the very end, she only joins the investigation at the very end, too… Kitan was a very passive character and her POVs had no purpose, and unfortunately slowed down an already slow-paced story.
Another boring thing about this book was the romance. Both couples already had feelings for each other at the start of the book, so all we really see is them rekindling their relationships and finally getting together. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve seen this done successfully before (some of my favourite ships of all time had their friendship, and sometimes even romance, developed BEFORE the book begins)!!! It’s just that, unfortunately, this author never managed to make me LOVE these couples. They were alright! They had sweet moments and clearly respected each other. And I LOVED that the LIs weren’t toxic or mean. They were both sweet and kind, and clearly cared about and respected the MCs! These romances had a lot of miscommunication and misunderstandings, which made them a *bit* annoying, but the LIs still ended up openly talking about their feelings and apologizing for their wrongdoings, which I REALLY appreciate. 👏👏👏 But just because the characters were nice, it doesn’t mean the romance moved me. It didn’t. At all. I just didn’t care about the romantic plotlines 🤷🏻♀️.
I said a lot of negative things, but I want to make it clear that I didn’t HATE the book! I just found it profoundly boring and overall very forgettable. But there were still things I really enjoyed:
➤ I really liked both MCs! (Even though I found Kitan’s POVs unnecessary, I liked her as a character!!!). They were both well rounded, very human, and extremely nice. They’re the kind of people you’d want to be best friends with!
➤ Heather was too villainous at times (particularly when it came to her ~evil plan~ lol ), but I found her blackfishing unfortunately VERY realistic. I mean, I can think of at least 5 famous influencers that blackfish A LOT 🥴🥴🥴. Her forging documents to fully pretend she was black was the icing on top, though. 💀
➤ I really appreciated the conversations about racism (both overt, but also the microaggressions included in the story). And I REALLY loved that the characters called the racism out! 👏 I also liked the discussions about biphobia and coming out in general. 👌
➤ As I already mentioned, I really liked that the LIs were actually nice! I’m soooo sick and tired of mean, angry and broody men in books, who are lowkey rude to the girls they’re gonna end up with. So I always LOVE seeing LIs who are unapologetically kind, actually apologize for their mistakes, validate others’ feelings and express their own. 👌
The premise of this book is really intriguing. 2 cousins go to a fancy school and one day a bunch of secrets about some of the most popular students come out, and everyone blames one of the cousins, so she has to find out who exposed those secrets so she can clear her name. That sounds so cool!
Unfortunately, though, the execution was really off. First of all, it took 50 pages for anything interesting to finally happen, which made the start of this book quite boring. But I was like “You know what? That might’ve been a slow start but NOW things are FINALLY going to get interesting!”. And uh….. Yeah. That didn’t happen. 🫥
For starters, most of the secrets were quite boring. Sure, some were scandalous (like “this person cheated” and whatnot). But there was literally a secret that was “You don’t have what it takes and everyone knows it.”????? And another one implying that a guy was faking being gay for attention… as if anyone would ever want *hate crime* type of attention 🥴 (
Then everyone blames Iyanu because the secrets were written on the pictures she’d taken, which is just completely absurd. It makes no sense to me that people would think it’s Iyanu. Why would she use HER OWN photos? That would obviously incriminate her! Also, how could she even know all of those secrets when she didn’t even talk to those people? It’s clear from the start that Iyanu’s photos were just stolen and used for this little exposé. And yet nobody managed to put 2 and 2 together and realize she didn’t do it? 🤨🙄
Anyways. Iyanu starts investigating so she can clear her name (and also so she can find another thing the real culprit stole from her). I thought we’d get a lot of sleuthing, eavesdropping, bluffing and spying in this section of the book, but we barely got anything. There were only like 4 or 5 (short) investigative moments, spread through hundreds of pages, which made a lot of this book feel like filler. Additionally, Iyanu started counting out and teaming up with a bunch of people, so by the halfway point there were only like 3 possible suspects, so even when we got the reveal I wasn’t gagged, because like… there were no other options? Also, it was very obvious from the beginning who the “bad guy” was going to be (I literally wrote in my notes this person was a “very obvious villain” ON PAGE 6!!! 💀💀💀). I didn’t fully guess their plan, so that was a bit interesting to learn in the end, but still. If the obvious villain from basically page 1 ends up being the ACTUAL villain, that makes the mystery quite underwhelming. 😕
So, overall, the mystery in this mystery book was very boring to me: the setup wasn’t that dramatic, the investigation was extremely slow-paced and lackluster (it could’ve all been done in 50 pages max, but instead it was spread through hundreds), and the villain was obvious from the beginning.
Now, you might’ve noticed that I have yet to mention the other MC, Kitan. Well, that’s because she’s irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong: she’s a sweet girl! It’s just that she had no reason to be taking up half of this story. The 1st time I was interested in her POV was at 46% (she found a lost object, and I thought something exciting was finally gonna come from Kitan’s POV! I was wrong. 🫥 This only came back up again at the very end, and wasn’t that thrilling anyways). Her POVs only existed to give the readers a glimpse of other characters, particularly the popular (racist) girl. I genuinely can’t think of any other reason for Kitan’s POVs to even exist; she doesn’t talk to Iyanu until the very end, she only joins the investigation at the very end, too… Kitan was a very passive character and her POVs had no purpose, and unfortunately slowed down an already slow-paced story.
Another boring thing about this book was the romance. Both couples already had feelings for each other at the start of the book, so all we really see is them rekindling their relationships and finally getting together. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve seen this done successfully before (some of my favourite ships of all time had their friendship, and sometimes even romance, developed BEFORE the book begins)!!! It’s just that, unfortunately, this author never managed to make me LOVE these couples. They were alright! They had sweet moments and clearly respected each other. And I LOVED that the LIs weren’t toxic or mean. They were both sweet and kind, and clearly cared about and respected the MCs! These romances had a lot of miscommunication and misunderstandings, which made them a *bit* annoying, but the LIs still ended up openly talking about their feelings and apologizing for their wrongdoings, which I REALLY appreciate. 👏👏👏 But just because the characters were nice, it doesn’t mean the romance moved me. It didn’t. At all. I just didn’t care about the romantic plotlines 🤷🏻♀️.
I said a lot of negative things, but I want to make it clear that I didn’t HATE the book! I just found it profoundly boring and overall very forgettable. But there were still things I really enjoyed:
➤ I really liked both MCs! (Even though I found Kitan’s POVs unnecessary, I liked her as a character!!!). They were both well rounded, very human, and extremely nice. They’re the kind of people you’d want to be best friends with!
➤ Heather was too villainous at times (
➤ I really appreciated the conversations about racism (both overt, but also the microaggressions included in the story). And I REALLY loved that the characters called the racism out! 👏 I also liked the discussions about biphobia and coming out in general. 👌
➤ As I already mentioned, I really liked that the LIs were actually nice! I’m soooo sick and tired of mean, angry and broody men in books, who are lowkey rude to the girls they’re gonna end up with. So I always LOVE seeing LIs who are unapologetically kind, actually apologize for their mistakes, validate others’ feelings and express their own. 👌
Content Warnings
Moderate: Toxic friendship and Racism
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