A review by stressejesse
Troublemakers by Catherine Barter

5.0

All 371 pages of this creation were an absolute gift.

People tend to say "I couldn't put it down" so much that I think it's been diluted. Just a shorthand way of saying you loved it. But I literally couldn't put this book down. I told myself "just one more chapter", "oh I'll just read til the next part", "the next chapter that has a mini time-skip is where I'll stop". I devoured it in a night.

I don't think there was a chapter (or a page) in this book I didn't cry (read: sob) at, not just because parts of it are sad, but because of how much it got to me. This book is gorgeous to read.

I had to take crying-breaks so I could get the tears out of my vision so I could see the page without it being blurry. This book broke me and I'm only ever going to say thank you. I felt So Much reading this.

Also how am I simultaneously every single character in this book? It's like this book is a direct tether to my soul.

I picked this up knowing nothing about it except that it was on some YA rec list someone had made. I wasn't expecting to like it all that much, and I was initially going to read something else tonight, but I decided at the last minute to turn to this instead. It had been sitting on my bookshelf for a few months, me being completely unaware of how much of a favourite it would become.

Also, I want to write like this. I got 20 pages in and immediately recognised my "yeah, this is the kind of style I like. I want to write like this" feeling of inspiration and reverence of knowing so early on that someone will mean a lot to me.

As a formal apology to every other book I've read in the last almost 22 years, you've been dethroned. Mercilessly.

Holy shit.