So, my feelings were mixed on this book. I liked aspects of it; the mother's mysterious death, the secret society, etc. But, I also felt the story was not cohesive enough and some of the characters fell flat. The society had too many characters to remember, often interchangeable, which made it hard to really connect with what they stood for or why they went the route they did with Haunt & Rail. The story really started to unravel around the middle, when the society began work on catching a predator teacher. I liked this idea of students acting on behalf of other students who were too scared to come forward, but I felt like the author should have really been more firm on the stance. It was hard to agree with what they were doing when everything was so ambiguous. This may have been the intention, to begin to question the ethics of this society, but I am not sure this was the right tactic. I liked the idea of a society that rails against injustice. However, I did not like a society that believe they are better than their own prejudices or they can set their own moral high ground. Those in power felt they were the be all and end all, often using information against their own members as blackmail. They had no consideration for their actions and the impacts of those actions on the students they are trying to defend and protect. Yes, I believe students should be involved to enact change, but when it comes to whether criminal activity is ever justified I begin to itch. This book deals with a lot with morality, the idea that at what point is social justice going too far? There is a very ambiguous ending, which I did like, but also felt if the book was more firm in other places, if connections were more solid throughout, than this ending would have been perfect. I enjoyed Calliope's relationship with the art student, Nico. I did not like how insta-love it was, but I did like how open they were (other than hiding the secret society). They understood each other and Nico is willing to help her immediately with her search for information on her mother. Calliope does not offer the same amount of trust to Nico though. This push and pull of her emotions was a nice way to connect more with her character and to see her more as someone questioning her decisions when it comes to the people she likes, or the family she loves. Calliope and her sisters was another aspect of the book that fell a little flat. Her one sister was too clingy, but at the same time distant. Which I suppose makes sense later, but really was a bother throughout. I also felt there should have been more between them to make their later conflict more meaningful. I felt there was forced strain put on the relationship to create conflict later on that coincided with Calliope's connection to Haunt & Rail. But it was almost too much, too perfect that they worked together. This is starting to seem rambly, but I cannot quite put into words how off these two stories seemed. Like they were being forced to connect, instead of them flowing well together. The two stories should have been woven together better. When the truth about her mother was finally revealed it was underwhelming. I felt like there should have been more, that everything she had been through at Tipton became rather worthless and unimportant. Her reasonings felt suddenly unreasonable. Calliope let herself be pulled into things that went against her character, that she herself belittles her sister for. Sure, maybe it helps her to understand her sister more, but it also made her character into a wishy washy mess. Okay, rant over. This book was good, just needed some tightening up and readjusting. I would suggest reading Kit Frick's I Killed Zoe Spanos, a truly amazing novel that I read and loved in 2020.
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