A review by monchie_aitch
Bully by Penelope Douglas

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Holy crap.

Penelope Douglas, you have not done it again.
Jesus Christ, if this were ever a cry for help from a pick me, this would be it.
The only loveable character in this situation was Grandma.

Tate is a piece of work. 
Her entire monologue was in full Regina George mode. Women should be backing each other up, not tearing each other down.
I felt Piper was just an insert, there was no attempt at giving her a background story other than she 'hangs' off of Jared and sleeps with him.
Tate's best friend would've been dropped by me immediately; I couldn't give a shit if she had been through a bad breakup, you don't side with the enemy simply because they sympathized with you a little.
This wasn't a bully in my opinion. This was just a spiteful game of PvP.

Despite the characters endless flaws and red flags, I pushed on.
Chapter after chapter I was hoping for some movement, some redeemable quality that would suddenly spark out of nowhere but no.
I did not 'DNF' this book and I'll be honest, the moment I did finish it, I thought about buying the rest of the series because in that moment it wasn't bad, but I let it stew and it didn't take long to retract my thoughts after sleeping on it. In the end I decided it doesn't deserve the stars I gave it. and lowered it to 1 star.