Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here by Anna Breslaw

Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here

by Anna Breslaw

Meet Scarlett Epstein, BNF (Big Name Fan) in her online community of fanfiction writers, world- class nobody at Melville High. Her best (read: only) IRL friends are Avery, a painfully shy and annoyingly attractive bookworm, and Ruth, her pot-smoking, possibly insane seventy-three-year- old neighbor.When Scarlett's beloved TV show is cancelled and her longtime crush, Gideon, is sucked out of her orbit and into the dark and distant world of Populars, Scarlett turns to the fanfic message boards for comfort. This time, though, her subjects aren't the swoon-worthy stars of her fave series--they're the real-life kids from her high school. Scarlett never considers what might happen if they were to find out what she truly thinks about them...until a dramatic series of events exposes a very different reality than Scarlett's stories, forever transforming her approach to relationships--both online and off.

Reviewed by A Darker Shade of Rosie on

3 of 5 stars

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LIKED: Scarlett is snarky, ill-humored, and doesn't fit in. I appreciated her 'voice' and how she was a flawed character. • The novel is rich with internet culture. • I applauded Scarlett's sassiness, which is a character trait I can (almost) always approve of. • I enjoyed her journey to being comfortable and confident in her writing (it's a journey I'm on myself), but in the long run, her relationships and the way she dealt with them were more my cup of tea. • I loved her friendship with Ruth, her elderly pot-smoking feminist neighbor. She may have seemed irresponsible on the outside, but she turned out to be a wonderful role model for Scarlett. • Her love interest's name is Gideon - points for being a bad ass name.

DISLIKED: • The fanfiction aspect of the novel just seemed...lacking. I got excited about it when it was first introduced, because I've recently read another book where it worked phenomenally, but here... not so much.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 2 January, 2018: Finished reading
  • 2 January, 2018: Reviewed